Obama’s plan for the 2017 fiscal year, beginning October 1, would accept 110,000 refugees fleeing persecution and conflict throughout the world – a almost 60 percent increase over the 2015 fiscal year.
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After a collective panic over refugees this year, Obama’s announcement that he would increase the number of refugees admitted into the country in 2017 could have been expected to set of a new round of fear mongering.
Secretary of State John Kerry briefed lawmakers on the goal on Tuesday.
The escalating migrant crisis, prompted by turmoil in Africa and the Middle East (specifically Syria), has sharply divided Americans and citizens from other countries as well.
Administration officials say refugees are subject to the most rigorous screening of any traveler to the United States.
The previous year that Washington committed to resettling refugees on a comparable scale was in 1995, when then-President Bill Clinton authorized 112,000 entries. The organization notes, however, that the increase will not be enough to address the scope of the current refugee crisis, and that Congress and the administration should work together to properly fund the US resettlement program. “It is lunacy, politically correct lunacy for President Obama and Hillary Clinton to support bringing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into this country when the Federal Bureau of Investigation can not ensure that those refugees are not terrorists”. Syrian refugees, however, are still just a fraction of the total refugees the USA accepts. “As Secretary [Kerry] has said, this is who we are; this is America at its best”, 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.
In the Northeastern U.S., only New Haven, Conn., has accepted more Syrian refugees than Buffalo.
The Wall Street Journal reports President Barack Obama plans to boost the number of refugees admitted into the U.S.by 30 percent during the 2017 fiscal year. “15,000 refugees are resettled in the US every year”.
The ethnic conflicts are on the agenda Wednesday when President Obama meets with Burma’s state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto leader, who arrived in Washington for a two-day visit.
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Asmaa Albukaie, a Syrian refugee who moved to Idaho with her two children in 2014, said she was saddened when governors started saying past year they didn’t want Syrian refugees. “Donald Trump and I believe that we should suspend the Syrian refugee program”.
