The U.S. will admit its 10,000th Syrian refugee on Monday, a month ahead of the goal the Obama administration set when it sought to receive more refugees from the war-torn country.
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National Security Adviser Susan Rice says Obama understood the important message that expanding Syrian refugee admissions would send, not just to the Syrian people but to the broader worldwide community.
The White House had pledged to admit at least 10,000 displaced Syrians during the current fiscal year, which wraps up at the end of September.
Rice said the number represented a “six-fold increase from the prior year”, and called it “a meaningful step that we hope to build upon”.
According to the Daily Intelligencer, the year-old program has ushered in 25 times the refugees permitted to cross USA borders in the previous fiscal year.
The Syrian refugees admitted to the United States are chosen from United Nations camps and then vetted by USA security and intelligence agencies.
“This achievement is a testament to the hard work and dedication of employees across the federal government”, Rice said in the statement. Their commitment to meeting the President’s expectation that we both increase our refugee admissions and strengthen the integrity of the refugee program, including its stringent security screening protocols, has been essential to this effort. Most struggle to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries. The Associated Press reports that the number will be reached after a group of several hundred refugees from the Syrian civil war are set to leave Jordan for America sometime in the next day, after having clearing the USA screening process.
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The issue has emerged as a major political flashpoint over the past year.
