The United States will take in 15,000 more refugees from around the world next year, increasing the current level to 85,000, and to 100,000 in 2017, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday (September 20).
“I’m pleased to announce today that the United States will significantly increase our number for refugee resettlement in the course of this next year and the year after,” Kerry said after talks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“Last year I think we were at 70,000, we are now going to go up to 85,000 at least, and I underscore the ‘at least’ – it is not a ceiling, it’s a floor of 10,000 over the next year from Syria specifically, even as we are also receiving more refugees from other areas. And in the next fiscal year, we’ll target a 100,000.”
The remarks may show an increasing willingness of the United States to help cope with the mass migration of Syrians although the offer is modest when compared with the hundreds of thousands that are moving alone to Europe and in particular, Germany.
Kerry did not say how many of the additional refugees would be from Syria but pledged that the U.S. was ready to help.
“But this step that I am announcing today, I believe is in keeping with the best tradition of ‘America as a Land of second chances’ and a ‘beacon of hope’. And it will be accompanied by additional financial contributions to the humanitarian effort, not only from our government but from the American people. And that will become more specific in the next days,” Kerry told a news conference.
“We’re doing what we know we can manage immediately. What we feel what we can do by working within the system we have and within the challenges we have, budget-wise, but as soon as we have an opportunity to try to up that, we’ll welcome – because America has always welcomed – bringing more people in in these kinds of circumstances.”
Kerry’s comments address calls on U.S. President Barack Obama, to help more in the crisis. Obama has said the U.S. will accept at least 10,000 Syrians over the coming year displaced by the four-year civil war.
Kerry’s announcement comes ahead of a Septmeber 23 emergency summit meeting of European Union leaders to address the flood of refugees that has overwhelmed the region.
Countries disagree as to who should take responsibility for the more than 500,000 people who have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe this year alone, prompting Hungary’s use of water cannon and razor wire on its border with Serbia.
Many of the same fears shape the debate in Europe as in the United States, where the number of refugees allowed in slowed sharply after the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Some Republicans have warned that the administration was allowing in potential terrorists. Aid groups, meanwhile, have been critical of plans to allow in only 10,000 Syrians, given the large size of the American economy and population. They have called for ten times as many to be admitted.
Kerry has pushed for renewed efforts to find a political solution to the crisis and urged Russia and Iran, who back Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, to convince him to negotiate an end to the war.
While in London on Saturday, Kerry repeated that the Syrian president must go but said the conditions and timing of his departure depended on negotiations.
The German foreign minister insisted again that his task could only be taken on, the the international community finds a “common position”, naming specifically Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia.