On September 10, the Obama administration announced an increase to the number of Syrian refugee resettlements in the U.S. from 1,500 to 10,000 over the next year.
This is far short of the 65,000 requested by the International Rescue Committee.
With 4.1 million Syrian refugees and 7 million internally displaced Syrians, the U.S. can and should do more.
We believe this is not just a humanitarian crisis. We believe it is a threat to our national security to leave 2 million child refugees to grow up forgotten without resettlement.
We ask the administration to increase its target for Syrian refugee resettlements from 10,000 to 65,000 by the end of of 2016. The administration should prioritize overcoming any barriers to accomplish this. If we have the will, there is a way.