U.S. Expects to Quadruple the Number of Syrian Refugees Brought Here

[mystery-ak]

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/us-expects-quadruple-number-syrian-refugees-brought-here


U.S. Expects to Quadruple the Number of Syrian Refugees Brought Here
February 17, 2015 - 7:04 AM
By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) - The United States has "a long tradition of welcoming refugees," and it expects to welcome thousands more of them from Syria in 2015 and 2016, despite concerns about foreign fighters, the State Department said.

"The United States has admitted 524 Syrians since 2011. We’re likely to admit 1,000 to 2,000 Syrian refugees for permanent resettlement in Fiscal Year 2015 and a somewhat higher number, though still in the low thousands, in Fiscal Year 2016," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday.

But at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee last week, Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas) said it would be a "huge mistake" to bring refugees from Syria and Turkey into the United States where they "could potentially be radicalized."

Psaki told reporters on Friday that national security "is absolutely a priority" in the decision to admit refugees.

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[mystery-ak]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/officials-fear-syrian-refugees-pose-threat-us/story?id=28930114

US Officials Admit Concern Over Syrian Refugee Effort
Feb 12, 2015, 5:28 PM ET
By JUSTIN FISHEL AND MIKE LEVINE

 Top U.S. counterterrorism officials say they worry a potential terrorist could be hiding among refugees who are looking to come to the United States after escaping the brutal war in Syria.

"It's clearly a population of concern,” the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Nicholas Rasmussen, told the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, went further, saying it would be a “huge mistake” to bring refugees from the conflict to the U.S. – even as an estimated 4 million children, women and men have been forced to flee Syria and another 7 million have been displaced from their homes there, unable to leave.

Senior officials leading the State Department’s refugee efforts say the U.S. government has a long history of caring for the innocent victims of war.

“It’s not a matter of should we do it, it’s really a matter of how we do it,” Larry Bartlett, the State Department’s director of Refugee Admission for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, told ABC News. “One of the fundamental principles of our country is that we care about others. We will help others.”

 Bartlett insisted every refugee is vetted through an “intensive” system, drawing on information and expertise from several U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Defense Department.

“We have a very slow process of moving refugees through our pipeline, and part of it is because of the security vetting component,” Bartlett said.

Homeland security officials also testified Wednesday that any potential refugees from Syria would receive “the most rigorous screening.”

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