In a memorandum on Immigration, President Obama said up to 70,000 refugees may be admitted to the U.S. during the 2015 fiscal year.  The President stated that this number was well justified due to humanitarian concerns and national interest.

The number of people eligible to receive refugee status is split into an uneven quota by region.  The slots available to people from various regions is as follows:

• the Near East and South Asia region received the highest allocation with 33,000.
• Africa received 17,000
• the East Asia region was allocated 13,000
• the Latin American and the Caribbean region was assigned a total of 4,000 available slots
• Europe and Central Asia was allotted 1,000
• the “Unallocated Reserve” has 2,000 slots, to be allocated as needed

The State Department can allocate the 2,000 unallocated refugee numbers to another region if the need is warranted but only after notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress.