US accepts 10,000th Syrian refugee Monday

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

The U.S. met a key Syrian refugee pledge Monday when it accepted the 10,000th asylum-seeker from the war-torn country, Secretary of State John Kerry said.

President Barack Obama ordered his administration in 2015 to admit 10,000 refugees by the end of the fiscal year that concludes at September’s end, amid doubts that the U.S. could meet the goal.

"By committing additional resources to our refugee admissions process and maintaining our rigorous screening process and commitment to the security of the American people, we have reached that goal," Kerry said in a statement, but acknowledged more work remains to resolve Syria's humanitarian catastrophe.

"More needs to be done to help those who are besieged inside Syria; more has to be done to assist refugees; more has to be done to support Syria’s neighbors, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey; and more has to be done to resolve this brutal conflict that has cost far too many lives and forced far too many people from their homes," he said.

Obama's resettlement benchmark is a six-fold increase from the prior year, according to National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

“This achievement is a testament to the hard work and dedication of employees across the federal government,” Rice said in a statement. “On behalf of the president and his administration, I extend the warmest of welcomes to each and every one of our Syrian arrivals, as well as the many other refugees resettled this year from all over the world."

The milestone avoids a potential embarrassment for Obama as he prepares to convene a refugee summit next month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

His announcement was met with fierce opposition from Republican state governors and lawmakers who warned that it could jeopardize U.S. national security.

Republican nominee Donald Trump said earlier this summer that “a lot” of those seeking safe harbor are from the Daesh terror group.

“They are letting tens of thousands of people come in from Syria, and nobody knows who these people are,” he said.

The administration, however, has insisted that its efforts to meet the comparatively lofty goal were not done at the expense of the U.S.' extensive vetting procedures and, those who have been admitted should not be seen as security threats.

The U.S. will admit at least 85,000 refugees this year from across the globe, Rice said.