However, Obama has a chance in just a few weeks to redeem himself with the Muslim world and open the gates wide.
What Arab News is referring to here (below) is that by the end of September Obama will submit to Congress his annual determination letter which will lay out his Administration’s wishes for which refugees and how many will be admitted to the US in FY2014. Here is information on his FY2013 request. By the way, for those of you who sent testimony to the State Department in May this is the culmination of that process.
We will be watching for it. And, we are told that Members of Congress “NEVER” make changes—too preoccupied, too lazy or too chicken to do so?
Should Western governments get a free pass on accepting Syrian refugees? Certainly not, although they will find it politically hard to accept large numbers of Muslim refugees*. Nevertheless, the West must demonstrate its willingness to bear part of the burden. So far this fiscal year, the US has admitted just 33 Syrian refugees. The new fiscal year will permit President Barack Obama to provide for a significant number of Syrian refugees within the 70,000 total allotted to the US refugee program. In turn, the US willingness to accept more refugees can also help accelerate resettlement efforts by other Western countries. Under normal US procedures, resettlement could take a few years. So as the United States has done with Indochinese and other refugee groups, it must expedite processing.
The President also has the authority to go well beyond 70,000. That number just happens to be the number they have been stuck on for several years.
* Note that there is never any suggestion of saving the Christians!