As the United States moves to significantly increase the number of refugees allowed into the country each year, experts say the Australian Government will face pressure to do the same.

US President Joe Biden has said he would cap refugee admissions at 125,000 each year as part of the country’s refugee resettlement program – an eight-fold increase on the current 15,000.

“We offered safe havens for those fleeing violence or persecution” in previous decades when America’s “moral leadership on refugee issues” encouraged other nations to open their doors as well, President Biden said.

“I’m approving an executive order to begin the hard work of restoring our refugee admissions program to help meet the unprecedented global need,” he said.

“It’s going to take time to rebuild what has been so badly damaged, but that’s precisely what we’re going to do,” President Biden said.

The President’s new refugee commitment echoes that of former president Barack Obama, who set an intake of up to 110,000 in his final year in office.

Under Donald Trump’s presidency, the program was cut to a historic low of just 15,000 places in 2020.

Refugee settlement experts say the Biden administration’s more progressive push for refugees could put pressure on the Australian government to follow suit.

Dr Claire Higgins, of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW, said it was likely the US will look to other nations to contribute more to their own resettlement programs.

“The Australian government has long sought to offset the controversial and harsh nature of its asylum policies by promoting an image of Australia as a generous contributor to refugee resettlement,” Dr Higgins said.

“Maintaining that ‘generous’ image will be important over the next four years as the Biden administration raises the bar for refugee admissions, especially if other countries follow the US’ lead,” she said.

The Australian government set a target of 18,750 humanitarian places for 2019-20 with its Refugee and Humanitarian Program.

But in its latest report, the Department of Home Affairs reported a significant reduction in the number of refugee visas granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic with just 13,171 Humanitarian Settlement Program places out of the total 18,750 allocated for that year.

Dr Higgins said a more humanitarian approach to refugees and asylum seekers on the part of Australia would strengthen ties with the new US administration.

“Immigration and refugee matters are a firm fixture of the Australia-US bilateral relationship,” she said.

“The two governments liaise closely and have well-established arrangements for exchanging knowledge and expertise on immigration management and refugee affairs,” Dr Higgins said.

In November 2016, then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced a ‘one-off’ refugee resettlement deal for people on Manus Island and Nauru.

Under an agreement with Mr Obama, up to 1,250 refugees would be transferred from Australia to the US.

While Mr Trump condemned the deal as “dumb” while in office, the transfers continued.

Dr Higgins said a similar deal could be possible with new US administration.

“The Australian and US governments have a long history of resettlement arrangements of this kind, dating back to the Carter administration in 1980 and through the Clinton, Bush and Obama years,” Dr Higgins said.