Submitted by Joseph Jankowski of PlanetFreeWill.com
The Obama administration’s refugee resettlement program took off in 2016 with 15,479 Syrian refugees having been admitted to the U.S, a 606% increase from the resettlement numbers of last year.
In his last month of the presidency alone, Obama admitted 1,307 more Syrian refugees to the states.
Overall, 98.8% of the refugees the president has welcomed into the country are Muslim.
CNS News Breaks it down:
- 15,302 (98.8 percent) are Muslims – 15,134 Sunnis, 29 Shi’a, and 139 other Muslims
- 125 (0.8 percent) are Christians – 32 Catholics, 32 Orthodox, five Protestants, four Jehovah’s Witnesses, and 52 refugees described only as “Christian” in State Department Refugee Processing Center data
- 43(0.27 percent) are Yazidis
- eight are “other” religion and one is described as having “no religion”
- 3,904 (25.2 percent) are males between the ages of 14 and 50
- 3,521 (22.7 percent) are females aged 14-50
- 7,428 (47.9 percent) are children under 14, of whom 3,824 are boys and 3,604 are girls.
While there were 13,287 less refugees admitted in 2015, the religious ratio was similarly skewed: 2,149 Muslims (98 percent) and only 31 Christians (1.4 percent).
Sunni Muslims account for a majority of Syria’s population – an estimated 74 percent were present in the country when the deadly Syrian conflict began in 2011.
The Obama administration has acknowledged the violence being perpetrated against Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities by the Islamic State in areas under its control but has refused to work with lawmakers to prioritize the vulnerable groups.
Last year, Obama condemned Republican presidential candidates for considering bringing in more Christian, describing the idea as “shameful” and “not American.”
“When I hear folks say that, ‘Maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims,’ when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Obama said, most likely striking at sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida).
As polls find that admitting Syrian refugees into the U.S. is an unpopular policy amongst the American people, fiscal year 2017 is already on pace to have more refugees enter the country.
Through the first 11 weeks in FY 2017 (Oct. 1 through Dec. 17), the United States welcomed 23,428 individuals as “refugees,” according to the Refugee Processing Center. At this rate, the U.S. will resettle roughly 110,580 in the new year.
Through the first 11 weeks of FY 2016, the Obama Admin. only welcomed 13,786 refugees.
3,074 refugees who arrived in the fresh fiscal year are from Syria, putting the nation on track to welcome more than 14,500 people from the warn-torn country by year’s end.
“Get them here before Trump takes office on Jan. 20, because you don’t know exactly what Trump will do with regard to this controversial program,” Leo Hohmann of WND said of the outgoing administration’s attitude towards taking in refugees. “The left is in panic mode because this program has run on autopilot for 35 years, and now for the first time we have a president who has expressed an interest in taking a hard, critical look at how it is run and the effects it’s had on our cities, states and country.”
Along with the thousands of Syrians, the U.S. has also resettled 3,269 Somali refugees in FY 2017.