After a slow start, it appears increasingly likely
that the Obama administration will hit its goal of admitting 10,000
Syrian refugees into the United States before the end of September.
State Department figures show that 2,340 Syrian refugees arrived last month in the United States.
That’s more than what occurred during the entire
seven months after President Barack Obama directed his team to prepare
for 10,000 admissions from the war-torn country. Total admissions for
the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, now come to about 7,900,
and the vast majority of them are Sunni Muslims, records show.
If the pace from June and July continues this
month, the target should be reached with a couple weeks to spare before
Obama heads to the United Nations to urge world leaders to admit more
refugees and to increase funding for relief organizations. The U.N.
General Assembly is holding a summit to address the large movements of
refugees and migrants that stems primarily from conflicts in the Middle
East and Africa.
Obama would have been hard-pressed to make the
case for other countries to do more with the U.S. failing to reach a
goal that amounts to only about 2 percent of the 480,000 Syrian refugees
in need of resettlement.
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