Security concerns limit Syrian refugees coming to U.S.
While the exodus from Syria has become the world's biggest refugee crisis, the United States is being criticized by relief organizations and some within President Barack Obama's Democratic Party for allowing only a limited flow into America.
Since October fewer than 800 Syrian refugees have been admitted into the United States, only a fraction of nearly 4 million displaced from the war-ravaged Middle Eastern country, according to State Department data.
An annual report by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees released on Thursday found that the Syrian refugee problem has for the first time become bigger than that in Afghanistan.
A U.S. State Department official said the total admitted in the last eight months was dramatically higher than in earlier years since the Syria crisis began in 2011. In the whole of 2014 only 249 Syrian refugees were let in.