The United States admitted on Monday its 10,000th Syrian refugee this fiscal year, meeting a goal set by President Barack Obama last year, a welcome improvement from fiscal year 2015 when the U.S. admitted just 1,700 Syrians. However, the U.S. continues to be outdone by much smaller, less wealthy nations like Turkey and Lebanon, where millions of Syrians who have fled the war in their country now reside.
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The White House said the 10,000th refugee arrived into the U.S. Monday afternoon. "While refugee admissions are only a small part of our broader humanitarian efforts in Syria and the region, the president understood the important message this decision would send, not just to the Syrian people but to the broader international community," U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice said in a statement.
The U.S. took in just 29 Syrian refugees in fiscal 2011; 31 in fiscal 2012; 36 in fiscal 2013; 105 in fiscal 2014; and 1,682 in fiscal 2015, according to U.S. State Department. Fiscal years in the U.S. end in September.
That means the U.S. has accepted less than 13,000 refugees since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011. The United Nations has registered more than 4.8 million Syrian refugees, meaning the U.S. has taken in less than 0.004 percent of all the registered Syrian refugees in the world.
Last year alone, more than a million people arrived in Europe seeking asylum, most of them from Syria. Italy and Greece have been on the frontline of the refugee crisis, receiving more than 1,000 people on a daily basis for the past few years.
The United Nations says more than 270,000 people have arrived to Europe through Italy and Greece.
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Italy’s coastguard rescued and took in more than 1,100 refugees on Sunday alone; at least 2,700 people have died this year alone attempting the same journey to Europe.
The U.S.’s northern neighbor, Canada—which also has an exceptionally tough screening process for refugees—admitted nearly 30,000 Syrians between Nov. 2015 and May 2016.
Germany alone took in more than 800,000 refugees last year and, despite facing a major backlash over her immigration policies, Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to take in more. And for all the efforts to keep them out, Scandinavian countries such Sweeden and Norway have still taken in tens of thousands of refugees over the past few years.
The majority of the Syrian refugees remain in developing countries neighboring Syria, however, such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, who have far less resources and wealth than the U.S. and its European allies.
U.S. admission of Syrian refugees has been a hot button issue in the 2016 race for the White House, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump warning that violent militants could enter the country posing as refugees.
Earlier this month Trump said he would institute "extreme vetting" for refugees to catch those who seek to do harm, despite the fact the U.S. already has the world’s most difficult and lengthy screening process that could take refugees up to two years to get admitted.