Kerry wants US to accept more refugees

Secretary of State John Kerry is proposing to increase the number of refugees the United States resettles each year to help European countries struggling to handle a growing migrant crisis.

During private meetings on Capitol Hill, Kerry told lawmakers he would like to boost the U.S.’s worldwide cap on refugees above 70,000 next year, a senior State Department official told reporters.

{mosads}Raising the cap would allow the U.S. to admit more Syrian refugees fleeing a war in their country that has lasted nearly five years.

The official would not share a specific number Kerry proposed, only saying he discussed “a range of different numbers” and that members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have “varying views” about how many should be let in.  

The Associated Press reported the Obama administration could boost the limit by 5,000, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

“We are committed to increasing the number of refugees that we take and we are looking hard at the number that we specifically can manage,” Kerry told reporters after the meeting.

Kerry’s comments are a sign the Obama administration is preparing to boost its efforts to address the crisis after criticism from human rights groups and members of Congress that it is not doing enough.

The administration plans to resettle 1,800 refugees from Syria by Oct. 1, far less than countries such as Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom have agreed to accept.  

The U.S. has provided $4 billion to humanitarian relief efforts since the crisis began, according to State Department officials. 

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have called on the administration to step up its efforts to take in more of the 4 million Syrians who have fled and end the multi-faction conflict involving government forces, rebels and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said the U.S. should “play our appropriate role” in the crisis. This spring, 14 Democratic senators called on Obama to “significantly increase” the number of Syrians allowed to resettle in the U.S. 

Human-rights groups have asked the U.S. to accept as many as 65,000 refugees by the end of next year, more than thirty-five times the number it resettled in 2015. 

The administration has considered lifting the cap for some time, but the official stressed some concerns remain.

There are worries about permanently resettling a large number of Syrians in a faraway country like the U.S. because the main objective of the resettlement program is to ensure refugees can “return home in peace” when the conflict ends. 

A major increase could strain the resources of agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Immigration Services, which screen refugees before they are allowed to travel to the U.S. for resettlement. 

The official said processing takes between 18 and 24 months. The goal is to “weed out people who are liars, who are criminals or would-be terrorists.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who oversees State Department funding in the Senate, has proposed an emergency spending bill to help address the crisis. 

While President Obama does not need congressional approval to lift the cap, doing so could trigger controversy amid battles with Republicans over the budget and a vote on the Iran nuclear agreement. 

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) expressed concerns after his meeting with Kerry.

“Secretary Kerry initially said that the Obama administration is seeking a reasonable increase in refugees allowed into the United States in the upcoming fiscal year,” he said in a statement. “But when pressed, the administration indicated that they were considering opening the floodgates and using emergency authority to go above what they proposed to Congress in today’s consultation. The administration also has not ruled out potentially paroling thousands of Syrians into the United States.”

Grassley said that before taking more refugees, the “Obama administration must prove to the American people that it will take the necessary precautions to ensure that national security is a top priority.”

Other lawmakers, such as Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a 2016 presidential candidate, have also previously raised security concerns about an influx of Syrian refugees. 

“In terms of settling the migrants, if the ultimate goal is to return them to their homes, which I believe it should be, it doesn’t make sense from a logistical or a security standpoint to move large numbers of them to far-off countries like the United States,” Cruz said in a statement. “Ultimately, we need to address the cause of this crisis or we will just have more and more migrants displaced.”

This story was updated at 4:13 p.m.