“Every Syrian I spoke to has told me that they would have stayed in their own country if they were able to feel safe, live in peace, and be treated with dignity”, said Peter Salama.
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Specifically to get that accomplished, on Wednesday Kerry met with a group of lawmakers to establish the quota of refugees the USA might take in from all over the world in Fiscal 2016.
Numerous Syrians so far have ended up moving to Michigan and California, where there are sizable Arabic-speaking communities and where they often already have family, said Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which helps resettle a quarter of all refugees to this country. Australia has also promised to accept an “extra 12,000 refugees“, from its previous commitment of 18,750 by 2018.
At the State Department, a spokesman said he wasn’t “aware of any permanent statuses” that would be given to incoming refugees.
The 1,500 Syrians who are resettling in the US represent a small percentage of the 11.6 million people who have been chased out of the country or uprooted from their homes due to the civil war in Syria. This is the first requirement before the administration can change the numbers of refugees they can take in.
“Over the next few months, we want as many people as possible to receive a decision on an approved residency status and then have the possibility to be put into contact [with the work market]”, she said.
“The Catholic Church in the United States-with almost 100 Catholic Charities agencies and hundreds of parishes assisting refugees to this country each year, and with Catholic Relief Services providing humanitarian aid to refugees in the Middle East and Europe-stands ready to help in this effort”, Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement September 10.
Meanwhile, the Mexican government says it is studying the possibility of accepting refugees from Syria, where war has sent millions fleeing. During the current fiscal year, some 1,600 Syrian refugees have come to the United States.
“The donation is a U.S. contribution to the education fund affiliated to Unicef in Lebanon to register children in schools”, Hale said, Xinhua news agency reported.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates – all relatively close to war-ravaged Syria and said by commentators to have the capacity to quickly house refugees – are yet to take any of the four million Syrians fleeing the region.
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With ISIS in Syria, the state department says refugees will undergo a thorough review process.
