President Obama to Increase Refugees Admitted to U.S. by 30% Of the 110,000 goal, 40,000 refugees would be from the Near East/South Asia, which includes SyriaBy Miriam Jordan
http://www.wsj.com/articles/president-obama-to-increase-refugees-admitted-to-u-s-by-30-1473818352
The Obama administration plans to raise the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. to 110,000 in the 2017 fiscal year starting Oct. 1, from 85,000 this fiscal year, according to an annual refugee report to Congress obtained by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
President Barack Obama was widely expected to announce an increase in the U.S. commitment ahead of a summit on refugees that he is convening next week during the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
The 110,000 target for 2017 for individuals fleeing persecution and conflict around the world represents a nearly 30% increase over this fiscal year and an almost 60% increase over the 70,000 admitted in 2015.
The last year that the U.S. committed to resettling as many refugees was in 1995, when President Bill Clinton set the ceiling at 112,000.
Each year, the president makes a determination of how many refugees will be admitted into the U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry presented the new target, outlined in the report to Congress, in a closed session to members of the House and Senate judiciary committees on Tuesday.
As he left the meeting, Mr. Kerry refused to provide details, saying he was “going to wait until the president releases it.”
A State Department official confirmed that Mr. Kerry had held the closed briefing regarding the president’s plan to admit refugees and said the official determination would be issued in coming weeks.
Following terrorist attacks in Paris and the U.S., the resettlement of Muslim refugees, particularly from Syria, has become a contested issue at the state level and in the presidential campaign.
Last year, Republican governors in roughly two dozen states voiced opposition to receiving Syrians, and some states tried to halt resettlement with lawsuits, which they lost.
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