Less than a year ago, in response to a global refugee crisis involving millions of Syrians fleeing violence and conflict, President Obama has asked his administration to increase the number of Syrian refugees who could be offered a safe haven in the United States, said in a statement Susan Rice, security adviser of the U.S. president.
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White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the United States will also seek to admit about 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming fiscal year that begins October 1. “Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of traveler to the United States”, she said, according to the AP.
More than 4.8 million people have fled the civil war in Syria since it began five years ago, many of them into the neighboring countries of Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
As several hundred refugees board planes bound for the US, they’re not only putting the hellish experiences of the Syrian civil war behind them – they represent the fulfillment of a promise USA leaders made a year ago to help shoulder the burden as civilians escape en masse. He said he would deport all Syrian refugees granted haven under Obama if he wins the White House in November. The State Department works with the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to resettle refugees.
A policy director at Church World Service, who has worked closely with the USA government and nonprofits to resettle Syrian refugees, described the 10,000-benchmark as sort of bitter-sweet. They undergo strict background revisions performed by intelligence agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Thousands of families from Syria have found safety on our shores, and that is a wonderful thing”, said Tarah Demant, senior director with Amnesty International USA. Now, additional Syrian refugees are moving to Charlottesville and will soon start adapting to their new home. He went on to say the administration should instead focus on taking out ISIS.
USA officials say that the refugees have gone through extensive vetting, which not only involved numerous interviews but also intelligence-driven vetting and reviews of their social media accounts. “We’re going to have to keep discussing that”.
Merkel’s comments came nearly a year after her decision to allow the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants stuck in other European countries.
For some, 10,000 is too many.
Germany, which admitted over a million Syrian refugees in 2015, and expects another 300,000 this year, serves as an example of Muslim refugee populations in the West. CSS volunteer outreach coordinator Erin Dunn told Yellowhammer last September they were equipped to provide assistance to up to 130 new refugees in the coming year.
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Information for this article was contributed by Karin Laub, Frank Jordans, Geir Moulson, Nicole Winfield, Nicholas Paphitis, Dusan Stojanovic, Pablo Gorondi, Elaine Ganley, George Jahn and David Rising of The Associated Press; and by Chad Thomas of Bloomberg News.
