WASHINGTON — The United States is prepared to increase the number of refugees it resettles by at least 5,000 next year as European countries struggle to accommodate tens of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.
Two officials and a congressional aide said that Secretary of State John Kerry told members of Congress in a private meeting Wednesday that the United States will boost its worldwide quota for resettling refugees from 70,000 to 75,000 next year, and that number could rise. A fraction of those would be from Syria.
After the meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kerry said the U.S. would increase the number of refugees it is willing to take in, but he did not give a specific number.
“We are looking hard at the number that we can specifically manage with respect to the crisis in Syria and Europe,” he said. “That’s being vetted fully right now.”
The officials and the congressional aide spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private meeting on the record.
Shortly after Kerry’s meeting, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., went to the Senate floor to urge stronger leadership from President Barack Obama on stemming violence in the Middle East and North Africa.
He stood next to an enlarged, close-up photo of the dead body of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian boy who drowned along with his 5-year-old brother and mother when their small rubber boat capsized as it headed for Greece.
“This image has haunted the world,” McCain said. “But what should haunt us even more than the horror unfolding before our eyes is the thought that the United States will continue to do nothing meaningful about it.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that the Obama administration has been looking at a “range of approaches” for assisting U.S. allies with 340,000 people freshly arrived from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Many are fleeing parts of Iraq that are under the Islamic State terrorist group’s control.
Currently, the top three groups of people resettled by the U.S. are Burmese, Iraqis and Somalis.
