President Barack Obama has ordered his team to admit at least 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, the White House said Thursday, amid criticism that the United States has not done enough.
Spokesman Josh Earnest
said Obama had asked staff to "scale up" the number of refugee
admissions from around 1,500 in this fiscal year, to 10,000 in the next,
beginning October 1.
"He has informed
his team that he would like them to... accept at least 10,000 refugees in the
next fiscal year," said Earnest.
With global public
opinion shocked by images of drowning refugees, the United States is under
political pressure to act quickly.
The United States
currently accepts around 70,000 refugees from conflicts and persecution each
year, but has been slow to accept Syrians.
Refugees from Syria and
its region must undergo strict security checks to weed out extremists, even
after being registered by the United Nations.
An estimated four
million Syrians have fled during four years of war.
© AFP 2015
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Obama-Syrian-refugees/2015/09/10/id/684146/#ixzz3lRcoxrH3
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