One in 10 people let into the United States this past year was a refugee. The United States lets about one million lawful permanent residents in each year. Of that, about 85,000 were refugees from all over the world.
A refugee, according to the United Nations, is someone “fleeing conflict or persecution.”
The ceiling for refugees set this year (Oct. 1, 2015 to Sept. 30, 2016) by the Report to Congress is 85,000, according to the senior director for refugee and community integration at Nationalities Service Center, Juliane Ramic.
“The refugees entering the country through the resettlement program don’t have the easiest journey,” Ramic said.
The United States did not go back on its word. The total number of refugees that entered the United States this past year was 84,995.
“They must go through a series of security checks, pass with a clean bill of health and react to new cultural norms,” Ramic said.
The 84,995 refugees coming into the United States are broken down into regions.
Syria falls under the Near East and South Asia regions. In these regions are a number of long-standing conflicts from which people are fleeing: Syrians along with persecuted people from Iraq, Afghanistan and ethnic Nepalese from Bhutan.
The number of Syrians who entered the United States last year in the fiscal year 2015 was just 1,682. However with the crisis going on in Europe the United States government responded.
The United States responded by admitting 12,587 Syrian refugees in FY 2016, which ended Sept. 30, 2016.
The reason refugees are fleeing the country where they are living is because of fear of persecution. Many of these refugees stay in refugee camps in Jordan or Lebanon. There are also some refugees who don’t feel safe and flee to Europe.
The refugees the United States will be bringing in are the refugees who are in those refugee camps. This is the US’s way of knowing who they are and where they are.
According to Pew Research Center, 12,587 Syrian refugees entered the United States this past year. Syrian Refugees were the 2nd largest group to enter the U.S. after the 16,730 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
How do you get picked to be a part of those 12,587?
Well, it is extremely difficult. There are over 11 million Syrian refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) are the ones who recommend refugees to the United States. Then many U.S.security agencies carefully screen those recommended and choose the 12,587 who came this year.
Workers from the Refugee Support Center will go to the refugee camps and begin building a case file on them. The refugees are really only given three options: to go home, to integrate into a community or to resettle in a third country.
Professor Abel Rodriguez, a defense attorney for refugees and religious studies professor, said,”Since refugees are resettling in a new country, they face many challenges.”
“They have to fit into a new culture. Some rules that applied in their country don’t apply here in the US,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez finds “with the attacks going on around the world like in Paris it hasn’t made the process for refugees any easier. If anything this just made things a lot worse.”
Things have gotten worse for the Syrian refugees. Russia has taken their bombing to the next level. The city of Aleppo has nothing left in it. Women are murdering themselves so that they do not get raped.
One of the areas in the United States with a Syrian community is Allentown, Pa.
Darian Kholi is a resident of Allentown. Kholi is Syrian. She grew up surrounded by her father, mother, brother and sister. Kholi’s father is from Syria. He left the country of Syria at age 8. Her father’s name is Red.
Kholi still has a lot of family members over in Syria. “I don’t get to speak to my family much. When I do it is just a hello,” Kholi said.
She is worried that after the attacks in Aleppo and with the recent U.S. election, her family members may never have the option of being one of those 12,587 coming into the United States.
Growing up in Allentown, she has felt nothing but love towards the Syrian culture. She felt at home walking around the streets of Allentown being referred to as his daughter.
”Recently I have felt a shift towards the Syrian culture in Allentown,” Kholi said. “I am worried with everything going on recently that people are not going to want to welcome those refugees. That makes me nervous because the fellow people in my hometown could be rejecting my family members one day.”
