President Barack Obama has set a goal to admit 110,000 refugees into the United States during the 2017 fiscal year, which is about 10,000 more than his initial goal and about 30 percent higher than this year.
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The increase reflects continuing concern about the refugee crisis stemming from Syria’s civil war, and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That would include about 40,000 people from the Near East and South Asia – a vast region that includes Syria. This is while a total of 14,000 slots were not yet allocated. He briefed lawmakers on the revised figure Tuesday. Roughly 70,000 were admitted in 2015, and 85,000 were admitted in 2016’s fiscal year.
While offering the prospect of accepting more refugees, the White House was talking tough about security.
The concern was heightened past year after terrorist attacks in European cities that connected to some people who had spent time in Syria.
There’s been a steady increase in the refugee cap over the last couple years. Last month, the Department of State announced that the US had already accepted 10,000 Syrian refugees, reaching the imposed goal for the current fiscal year.
But Durbin pointed to Canada, which has already accepted more than 25,000 Syrians, and to European allies that have taken in about 1 million of some 5 million displaced people. Some governors filed lawsuits to stop refugees from coming to their states; they lost.
Every year, the president sets a target of how many refugees the US should accept.
“The United States is deeply committed to assisting some of the world’s most vulnerable refugees through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program”, the department said in a statement.
The announcement seems created to boost Mr. Obama’s hand for next week, when he is scheduled to host a summit on the sideline of the U.N. General Assembly, pressing worldwide leaders for action on a global refugee crisis.
“Refugees are the most thoroughly screened travelers to our country”, said the White House. Over 20 million refugees have fled their countries, including almost 5 million Syrians.
African refugees would comprise the second-largest population of refugees at 35,000. In an interview, he said the United Nations was discussing those needs with the U.S.
Republicans have hammered the Obama administration’s new plans to increase the number of refugees.
Officials have been approving applications at an astonishing rate as the administration tries to meet this year’s goal, with just 17 days left in the fiscal year.
“U.S. leadership is essential for addressing the global refugee crisis”, said Eleanor Acer, who was selected as a civil society speaker for next week’s United Nations meeting. “This could be the great Trojan horse of all time”, he said, reprising a warning that terrorists including members of the Islamic State extremist group will sneak into the United States as refugees.
The refugees have arrived amid controversy over accepting them into the country.
Last month Kerry announced the US met its 2016 fiscal year goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees.
“One of things that the government did was to look around the world for refugees from non-al-Qaeda-linked countries”, she said. She added that she expects the numbers from Burma to decline in coming years as the crisis in the Thai camps eases and USA commitments shift elsewhere, such as to Syria.
The Republican-controlled House last year easily passed tough new screening procedures aimed at stopping Syrian refugees from entering the country – measures President Obama threatened to veto and which failed in the Senate this year on a procedural motion.
“It is a state of emergency when it comes to humanitarian issues”, said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
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Obama faced criticism in May from refugee advocates when the USA had taken in fewer than one-third of its goal for resettling displaced Syrians.
