REMINDER ANNOUNCEMENT JOHN KERRY ABOUT REFUGEE INTAKE GOALS FOR 2016 & 2017

USPA NEWS - Secretary of State John Kerry announced on September, 20, 2015, in Berlin, in a Joint Press Availability with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the United States is increasing the number of worldwide migrants it takes in as Western leaders...

Secretary of State John Kerry announced on September, 20, 2015, in Berlin, in a Joint Press Availability with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that the United States is increasing the number of worldwide migrants it takes in as Western leaders scramble to address the Syrian refugee crisis.

Here some interesting parts of Secretary of State John Kerry annoucement :

'So we know very, very well that the frontline states ““ Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey ““ have been inundated and they have ““ all of them ““ accommodated literally millions of refugees. And more recently, we´ve seen countries in Europe now struggling with this wave of refugees, of migrants who are coming from the conflict areas across Eastern Europe and into Central and Western Europe.'

'We, the United States, have been engaged in this kind of a policy in large terms over a long period of time. We are the largest single program in the world in refugee resettlement on an ongoing basis. I´m not talking about just emergency. And we are also the largest single contributor, now over $4.1 billion in the last few years in contributions to the UN refugee efforts. And since the beginning of the conflict in Syria, we´re proud that we´ve been able to provide more money for shelter, for food, for medicine. But we still need to do more, and we understand that. There are 7 million men, women, and children who are displaced inside Syria...

...There are 4 million more who are refugees scattered throughout the region. And the magnitude and duration of this crisis obviously has stretched the global response thin.'

'To that end, I´m pleased to announce today that the United States will significantly increase our numbers for refugee resettlement in the course of this next year and the year after...

...Last year I think we were at 70,000. We are now going to go up to 85,000 with at least, and I underscore the “at least“ ““ it is not a ceiling, it´s a floor ““ of 10,000 over the next year from Syria specifically even as we also receive more refugees from other areas. And in the next fiscal year, we´ll target 100,000, and if it´s possible to do more, we´ll do. One of the reasons it´s difficult is that post-9/11, we have new laws and new requirements with respect to security background checks and vetting, so it takes longer than one would like and we cannot cut corners with respect to those security requirements'.