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President Obama instructed the State Department to prepare to receive at least 10,000 additional Syrian refugees into the U.S. by the end of September, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday.
Earnest said White House is aware of the scale of the current Syrian refugee crisis. "We know," Earnest said, "there are millions of people who have been driven from their homes because of this violence."
In spite of that, Earnest continued, "we know that it is certainly not feasible for millions of Syrians to come to this country, but what we can do is make sure that we are doing everything we can do to try to provide for their basic needs, and that's why the United States has continued to be the largest donor to humanitarian assistance."
Still, some leading advocacy groups said the Obama administration's announcement, while a step in the right direction, wasn't enough.
"The White House’s pledge," Oxfam's Vice President for Police and Campaigns, Paul O'Brien, told BuzzFeed News, "is a start but it just scratches the surface. The US can and must do more to help ensure that thousands of Syrians fleeing violence have the safety and security they need."
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President and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Mark Hetfield's was incredulous at the low number. "I'm sincerely hoping this is a typo, I hope the President forgot a digit" he told BuzzFeed News. "It just shows no leadership in this area, it’s not even enough to be a symbolic gesture."
Hetfield said that though it is an increase from the 1,500 Syrian refugees that were originally to be taken in, allotting 10 to 15 thousand slots for a specific country is a crisis is "business as usual," he said. "We have four years to make up for ... we need to take in at least 100,000 more."
After an image of a drowned toddler drew the world's attention to the desperate situation of Syrians their country's long-running civil war, countries around Europe have opened their doors to the the largest influx of refugees since World War II. Of the 4 million Syrians that have fled, the U.S. has taken in 1,500.
The majority of escaped Syrians have entered primarily through Germany, Austria, and Greece, while France and the U.K. have agreed to take 24,000 and 20,000 refugees in the next two years respectively. Germany has pledged to admit 500,000 a year. The U.N. Human Rights Commission said Tuesday that it estimates that 400,000 refugees will enter Europe by the end of 2015.
As news of refugees packing themselves onto trains and boats and walking hundreds of miles to Europe reached the U.S., refugee advocacy groups, politicians, and individuals began to put pressure on the Obama administration to raise the cap on the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. per year, which was originally set at 70,000.
Earnest said Thursday that the U.S. was already on track to pass that cap by accepting 1,500 refugees by the end of the fiscal year, though now the number has been increased to 10,000 by September 30th.
Refugee advocates have called for the current overall target to be lifted to 200,000 – with 65,000 of those refugees from Syria alone to be resettled by the end of 2015.
“What we’re hearing from State Department officials is that they’re more comfortable with an incremental approach to the refugee ceiling,” Brittney Nystrom, advocacy director or the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, told BuzzFeed News recently.
Many advocates told BuzzFeed News that a larger increase in the number of refugees wouldn't cause many problems for their organizations. "Historically the U.S. has accepted as many as 200,000 per year," Matthew Soerens, a Church Training Specialist at World Relief told BuzzFeed News. "At this critical moment in time, World Relief and the many churches and volunteers that we represent are ready to help refugees to integrate into our communities."
"The infrastructure to handle 100,000 – even 200,000 refugees – is already there, we've done it before," Hetfield told BuzzFeed News recently.
Other advocates contacted by BuzzFeed News agreed. Since the public turned its attention onto the issue, they have had people saying they want to help the Syrian migrants. But there haven't been many Syrians to help. By October, this may change.
LINK: Live Updates On The Syrian Refugee Crisis
LINK: Refugees Speak Of Lives Left Behind As They Push North Into Europe
LINK: Refugee Advocates Want To Use This Moment To Push The U.S. To Do More To Help Syrians
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1igT5QF
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