About a year ago, President Obama announced that by September 2016, his plan was to welcome 10,000 refugees from Syria into the United States. According to America’s ambassador to Jordan—which is home to more than a million refugees—the U.S. will hit that goal this week.
Though the resettlement of refugees has been controversial in some areas and has been a political hot button in the presidential election, U.S. officials have insisted that those who are now in the U.S. have been well vetted. The refugees living in the U.S. were some of the most vulnerable in the world. As Ambassador Alice Wells explained, “Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States, and Syrian refugees are subject to even greater scrutiny.” Wells also said the goal is “a floor, not a ceiling.”
In the last five years, millions of Syrians have been displaced by an ongoing civil war and the rise of ISIS in the region.
