Hillary Clinton said Sunday the U.S. should commit to taking in 65,000 Syrian refugees next financial year, a significantly higher number than the 10,000 the Obama administration has announced it will accept.
"We're facing the worst refugee crisis since World War II, and I think the United States has to do more, and I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000, to begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in," Clinton told Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson on Sunday.
This is the first time Clinton has set a target number for the intake of Syrian refugees. In previous interviews, the former secretary of state has said there should be a global effort aimed at resettling the the large Syrian refugee population, which the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has put at more than 4 million.
Several Democrats, including 14 U.S. senators and her opponent Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, have been calling for 65,000 for months.
Clinton said on Sunday that the U.S. should prioritize taking in the most vulnerable -- including, she says, Christians and Yazidi women -- before repeating her call for a global meeting to address the issue.
"I also want the United States to lead the world, and I've recommended at the upcoming U.N. General Assembly there be an international meeting called by the secretary general and literally get people to commit [to] putting money in, helping the frontline states like Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon who've absorbed a lot refugees, working with the EU and the European countries, but getting everybody to make a contribution," Clinton said.
"I think we can do more," says Hillary Clinton, urging for US to accept more Syrian refugees. http://t.co/lDFqvPDMBV
The U.S. has resettled just 1,500 Syrian Refugees since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.
The Obama administration announced this month that they plan to accept 10,000 refugees in 2016, but refugee resettlement advocates and lawmakers criticized the announcement as insufficient.
The UNHCR has referred more than 15,000 Syrian refugees to the U.S. for resettlement. It currently takes between 18 and 24 months for the U.S. to process a resettlement claim, and, according to some sources, some refugees wait upwards of 1,000 days from time of application to resettlement.