Following a surge in Syrian refugee admissions in the last three months, the United States is on track to meet the Obama administration’s goal of welcoming 10,000 Syrians by the end of September.
From October 1, 2015, through Aug. 4, of this year, 8,004 Syrian refugees who fled violence and persecution in their home country have been resettled in the U.S.; half are under the age of 14, according to data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.
Migration slow, but steady
With arrivals in the low hundreds every month, the target number was in doubt for much of the last seven months since U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new plan in September, calling into question whether the sixfold increase over the previous year’s total (1,682) could actually be met by the end of the current fiscal year.
In February, the State Department established what it called a refugee “resettlement surge center” in Amman, Jordan. While the paperwork, interviews, medical and security screenings for refugees usually take 18 to 24 months, American officials claimed the center could reduce the processing time to three months.
Beginning in May, refugee arrival data shows that the number of Syrians increased from the hundreds in previous months to 1,069 in May; it then topped 2,000 in June and July.
The roughly 8,000 Syrian refugees who arrived this fiscal year were placed in 38 states: with 887 arrivals, Michigan was the top recipient, followed by California (783), Arizona (651), Texas (565) and Pennsylvania (481).
The U.S. is the largest recipient of third-country resettlement in the world; 60,921 refugees have arrived since last October.
Cap increased to 85,000
Last year, Kerry also announced that the administration was increasing the cap on the total number of refugees allowed into the U.S. in the current fiscal year from 70,000 to 85,000. That number – which the president sets based on recommendations from the State Department — will increase to 100,000 in the coming year.
But the surge in Syrian refugees to the U.S. still falls short of the demand. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), estimates 4.8 million Syrians have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. Another 6.6 million have been displaced inside Syria.
Not all of those refugees will need to be resettled in a third country, however. Refugees are eligible for third-country resettlement when they cannot return to their home country or settled permanently in the country where they first sought asylum, often neighboring countries like Jordan for the Syrians.
Early in the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, the U.S. was accepting only dozens of Syrian refugees a year as neighboring countries like Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have taken in millions fleeing internal conflict and the rise of Islamic State violence across the country. The administration’s call to accept more Syrian refugees was met with swift backlash from Republican governors across the country, and several state legislatures have introduced bills to curb the resettlement of some or all refugees from within their borders. Opponents to the increased refugee cap and additional Syrians argued that security screenings for refugees are inadequate, an allegation the administration has regularly refuted.
An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in early July showed that 69 percent of Republicans say they favor a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Overall, Americans opposed such a ban by a margin of 52 percent to 45 percent.
The U.N. General Assembly is holding a summit in September to address refugees and migrant issues, including nearly a million Syrians seeking asylum in Europe.
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