Feds push back on ‘myth’ Syrian refugee stat used by Trump
The federal government is pushing back on a figure used by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and others that 250,000 Syrian refugees will be relocated to the United States.
In a fact sheet on the Obama administration’s Syrian relocation efforts released Wednesday, the State Department sought to correct the “myth” that a quarter million Syrians are arriving “imminently.”
{mosads}”This is false,” the State Department fact sheet reads, adding that the U.S. has admitted a little more than 2,200 Syrian refugees since the bloody conflict in Syria began in 2011.
The State Department memo adds that the Obama administration “remains committed to its goal of resettling at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States” over the next year.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced in September the U.S. would accept 85,000 refugees total from around the world during the 2016 fiscal year and 100,000 more during the 2017 fiscal year.
The U.S. accepted an estimated 70,000 refugees from around the world during the 2015 fiscal year, for a combined total of 255,000 over three years. However, those from Syria have been a fraction of that total.
“Our president wants to take in 250,000 from Syria,” Trump said during a campaign rally Nov. 14 in Texas. “I mean, think of it: 250,000 people.”
“We all have heart, and we all want people taken care of and all of that. But with the problems our country has, to take in 250,000 people — some of whom are going to have problems, big problems — is just insane,” Trump said.
Trump, who has said in videos and tweets that Syrian refugees “are now pouring” into the U.S., also said in a radio ad from his campaign that Obama plans to “let hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria” into the U.S.
Other GOP presidential candidates have made similar claims, though not to the same degree as Trump.
The State Department on Wednesday also pushed back on claims that “all Syrian refugees are dangerous” amid heightened fears of terrorists slipping in among those fleeing violence.
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