A U.S. State Department official said on Thursday that 10,000 Syrian refugees would be resettled in the United States in fiscal year 2016.
“We’re going to bring in 10,000 this year,” Anne Richard, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration at the State Department, said at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.
Richard made the remark during a panel discussion on the U.S. response to the refugee crisis in the Middle East and elsewhere.
“In our own country we certainly can’t puff up our chest and vaunt our response when – I think the last numbers I heard on them – even a woefully small commitment to accept – what was it a thousand Syrian refugees?” Christian Science Monitor reporter and panel moderator Howard LaFranchi said.
Richard corrected him, saying that the U.S. had committed to allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees to be resettled in the U.S. in fiscal 2016 (Oct. 1, 2015-Sept. 30, 2016).
“We’re going to bring in 10,000 this year,” Richard said.
The Obama administration has increased the cap on the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. from 70,000 in fiscal year 2015 to 85,000 in fiscal year 2016 and 100,000 in fiscal year 2017 and increase the number of Syrian refugees admitted to 10,000 for fiscal year 2016.
As CNSNews.com reported earlier by, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data, May’s figure of 1,037 Syrian refugees entering the U.S. brings the total number since the beginning of 2016 to 2,099 – compared to 2,192 for the whole of 2015.