An Obama administration push is reportedly underway for a hike in the number of Syrian refugees accepted into the United States.
According to the Washington Examiner, the White House is considering a bigger role to alleviate the crisis sparked by the flood of Syrians leaving their civil war-torn country.
President Barack Obama's assistant for immigration policy, Felicia Escobar, told a task force organized by the
National Association of Counties about the new tack, the Examiner reports.
"We want to make sure that we can increase our numbers of refugees that are able to settle here," she said.
"The need globally is so, so, so massive right now, given all the displacement and conflict around the world, but we also know that we have to do it in a way that's smart."
The issue is one that has raised concerns among
GOP lawmakers – and
presidential candidates – about how to vet and weed out terrorists from Syrian refugees allowed to enter the United States.
But it's a financial matter for communities affected by the influx, the Examiner reports.
Sean Conway, a county commissioner from Weld County in Greeley, Colo., complains he's got to "fight" with the State Department to get promised services such as healthcare and interpreters.
"Many times we don't even know that relocation is taking place until it's going on," he said, the Examiner reports.
The administration allows entry to some 10,000 Syrian refugees a year.
A total of 2,290 Syrian refugees have arrived in the United States since 2011, when the Syrian civil war began, through Nov. 20, 2015, according to the State Department's
Refugee Processing Center.
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