Human-rights advocates said the plight of Burma’s refugees is a prime reason the Obama administration should resist lifting the national emergency designation established by executive order in 1997 that allows the United States to restrict companies from doing business with specific entities in that country.
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This figure is up from 85,000 in 2016.
According to the newspaper, 1995 was the year, when the United States presidential administration announced plan to accept the comparable number of refugees.
Children play at the yard of an abandoned school used by volunteers for hosting families of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan in Athens on June 27.
The Obama administration seeks to accept at least 110,000 refugees from around the world in fiscal 2017.
Almost five million Syrians have fled their country since war broke out in 2011, and the United States has committed to resettling 10,000 Syrians this year, an issue that has inflamed the 2016 presidential election race.
CNN first reported the administration’s new push on Wednesday morning.
“Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers the administration wants to admit 110,000 global refugees in the fiscal year that begins October 1”, NPR’s Scott Horsley said.
Many Republicans, including Donald Trump, have questioned whether terrorists are managing to enter the country through the asylum process.
“Why the Republicans, in particular, are focused so much on these heavily vetted refugees, who have a history of being good citizens when they become part of America, I don’t understand”, he added. A NBC News/SurveyMonkey online poll conducted in November found that 56 percent of Americans disapproved of letting more migrants fleeing violence in Syria and other nations into the USA, while 41 percent approve.
The refugee policy has also been the top issue in the 2016 United States presidential election.
FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress last fall that the Syrians could not be screened because the USA government has “no record of them”.
Durbin said Republicans would be much better off focusing on the nation’s massive flow of visitors who receive no background checks.
The “common-sense concerns of the American people are simply ignored as the administration expands its reckless and extreme policies”, the lawmaker said.
“We must remain compassionate toward refugees, but we also need to make sure that we use common sense”, Goodlatte said in a statement.
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. The Obama administration threatened to veto the bill arguing that the legislation was so restrictive that it would essentially halt the U.S.’s ability to actually admit Syrian refugees in the U.S.at all.
Another 35,000, would be approved to arrive from Africa while 14,000 were marked as not allocated. But of the millions of exiles from the Syrian war, only about 10,000 have reached US shores. More than 3,600 refugees were admitted in one three-day stretch last week, including 600 Syrians, bringing the total to more than 77,000 as of Tuesday.
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The House Judiciary Committee is pushing legislation that would give local officials a say in whether they can handle an influx.
