US President Barack Obama has asked for at least 10,000 Syrian refugees to be admitted to the US next year amid criticism that his government has done too little to help in the ongoing refugee crisis.
White House spokesperson Josh Earnest on Thursday said that Obama had asked staff to “scale up” the number of refugee admissions, which are likely to total about 1,800 in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
“He has informed his team that he would like them to make preparations to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year,” Earnest said.
Photo: Reuters
Around the world, voters shocked by images of drowning refugees have put pressure on their governments to act.
More than 62,000 Americans have signed a petition calling on Obama’s administration to resettle at least 65,000 Syrians by next year.
Earnest defended the administration’s response, saying that the US could not realistically provide sanctuary to the 4 million Syrians who have fled a brutal civil war.
“We know the scale of this problem and it is significant, there are millions of people who have been driven from their homes because of this violence,” Earnest said.
“What we can do is make sure we are doing anything we can to try to provide for their basic needs. That is why the United States has continued to be the largest donor of humanitarian assistance,” he added.
US humanitarian funding for the crisis has totaled about US$4 billion.
The US currently accepts about 70,000 refugees a year from all conflicts around the world and has been particularly slow to accept Syrians.
FBI Director James Comey was on Thursday asked about the risk of Islamic State (IS) group members infiltrating the Syrian refugees coming into the US.
“That is a threat we have to worry about,” he said.
“We have to make sure we understand who is coming in ... because there is a risk here,” he added.
Refugees from Syria must undergo strict security checks designed to weed out extremists, even after being registered by the UN.
“The process to bring refugees here is careful and deliberate,” a senior US Department of State official said on Wednesday.
“It takes between 18 to 24 months between when a refugee is referred to us and when they — if approved — end up arriving in the United States,” the official said.
Each refugee and their family is interviewed by the US Department of Homeland Security and names are checked against government databases.
“What we are trying to do is weed out people who are liars, who are criminals, or would-be terrorists,” the official added.
Advocacy groups have called on the Obama administration to take in many more refugees and do so more quickly.
“This is not leadership, it is barely a token contribution given the size and scale of the global emergency,” Human Rights First’s Eleanor Acer said.
The US, she said, “should demonstrate its commitment to addressing this crisis by launching a major resettlement effort that would provide protection to at least 100,000 Syrians in the next year.”
However, congressional Republicans said that Obama’s plan to “surge” refugees will affect the screening mechanism.
Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the House of Representatives, accused Obama of pressing ahead “in spite of consistent intelligence community and federal law enforcement warnings that we do not have the intelligence needed to vet individuals from the conflict zone.”
The best way the US could help would be to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defeat the IS, he said.
“This is the culmination of a failed foreign policy to deal with the threats and now we have a humanitarian crisis on our hands,” he added.
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