Ex-Officials
Urge White House to Accept More Syrian Refugees
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/18/world/middleeast/ex-officials-urge-white-house-to-accept-more-syrian-refugees.html
By
MICHAEL R. GORDON, SEPT. 17, 2015
WASHINGTON
— More than 20 former senior officials, including some who served in prominent
positions in the Obama administration, urged the White House on Thursday to
accept 100,000 Syrian refugees, a tenfold increase over an American commitment
made last week.
“We
urge that you announce support for a refugees admissions goal of 100,000 Syrian
refugees on an extraordinary basis, over and above the current worldwide
refugee ceiling of 70,000,” they wrote in a letter to President Obama and
congressional leaders.
The
United States has accepted about 1,500 refugees from Syria since the start of
the conflict there, and the White House announced last week that it would take
in at least 10,000 more Syrian refugees over the next year. But the letter,
which was signed by former officials from Democratic and Republican
administrations, argued that much more should be done.
“With
some four million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and hundreds of
thousands of Syrian asylum seekers in Europe, this would be a responsible
exercise in burden sharing,” it says. “We urge you to take extraordinary
measures, as were taken for refugees from Vietnam, northern Iraq and Kosovo.”
The
letter also urges the White House to allocate up to $2 billion to pay for
resettling Syrian refugees and to help support international refugee efforts.
The United States has provided more than $4 billion in humanitarian assistance
for Syrian refugees, but international organizations are struggling with
funding shortfalls.
The
former officials who signed the letter include some noteworthy veterans of the
Obama administration: Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense;
Derek Chollet, who served as an assistant defense secretary, Harold H. Koh, who
served as the State Department’s legal adviser; and Eric P. Schwartz, who was a
senior refugee official in the State Department.
Signatories
who served in Republican administrations include Paul D. Wolfowitz, a deputy
defense secretary in the George W. Bush administration, and Kori Schake and
Richard Fontaine, who worked on the National Security Council under Mr. Bush.
Several
former diplomats who served in the Middle East were also signatories, including
Robert S. Ford, whom Mr. Obama named to serve as ambassador to Syria, and Ryan C. Crocker, who served as
ambassador to Afghanistan under Mr. Obama and was previously ambassador to
Syria and Iraq, among other countries.
Some
conservative members of Congress have raised concerns that admitting large
numbers of refugees could pose risks if militants infiltrated their ranks. And
administration officials have cited constraints, including the 18 to 24 months
that it takes the Department of
Homeland Security to do background checks. But the letter asserts that
these issues can be managed.
“We
have demonstrated that it can be done in the case of the Kurds, the Kosovars
and the Vietnamese,” said Mr. Schwartz, who coordinated refugee settlement
efforts for such groups during the Bill Clinton administration and currently
serves as the dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University
of Minnesota. “What we need is high-level political leadership. Even with a
responsible D.H.S. vetting process, we can have the capability to resettle
large numbers. For one thing, we need to put more money and people against
these requirements.”
The
United States took in 111,000 Vietnamese refugees in 1979. The next year, that
number grew to 207,000. Around the same time, the United States accepted more
than 120,000 Cuban refugees during theMariel
boatlift. But the number of refugees accepted by the United States dwindled after
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The
United States currently has an overall yearly cap on refugees of 70,000, and
Secretary of State John Kerry told
lawmakers last week that the cap should be increased to as many as
100,000.
