The increase in Syrian refugees also comes at a time of heightened national security concerns following extremist attacks in the USA and overseas.
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Alice Wells, the USA ambassador to Jordan, told the Associated Press on Sunday “the immediate goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees did not come at the cost of our comprehensive, robust security measures”.
President Obama promised to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the country and now that day has come.
“It wasn’t their choice”, said Lisa Hoyt, director of the refugee resettlement program at the Catholic Family Center.
There were 59 arrivals through April, and then there were 20 more in May, another 57 in June, and 73 more last month.
So far, August has brought a further 2,351 Syrian refugee admissions, but by month’s end on Wednesday the number is expected to exceed 2,600, surpassing June’s monthly record high.
While Rice admitted that a lot more work needs to be done in the region, she said the move is a step in the right direction.
Rice also said President Obama would use September’s UN General Assembly session to “convene a Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, highlighting the continued leadership of the United States on humanitarian issues and the significant contributions partner countries have made this year”. He first said he would ban all Muslims from immigrating to the US, refugee or otherwise, and later modified the ban to cover people from countries “compromised by terrorism” ― a broad designation that would include Syria. In the first four years of the conflict, the USA resettled only 1,900 refugees and faced a United Nations case referrals backlog.
Arizona and Texas, two red states led by Republican governors who have flat-out said they don’t want Syrian refugees because they supposedly pose a security risk, are next on the list having taken in 766 and 735 people, respectively, the figures show. Back then, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called the program “a good start”, and said the US should accept 65,000 refugees. Since the civil war started five years ago, more than 4.8 million Syrians have fled the country. The Obama administration later followed suit, accusing ISIS of genocide despite earlier hesitation to do so.
“The 10,000th Syrian refugee will arrive this afternoon (Monday)”, National Security Advisor Susan Rice announced in a statement.
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The influx of Syrian refugees, however, has been a major domestic political flashpoint over the past year.
