Nearly half of 2016 refugees to US are Muslim

WASHINGTON — According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, of the more than 63,000 refugees who have entered the United States this fiscal year, nearly half (46 percent) were Muslim — the highest amount of Muslim refugees admitted in any year since 2002.

Just two countries, Syria and Somalia, were the source of more than half of the 28,957 Muslim refugees admitted this year, according to Pew. The remaining refugees are from Iraq, Burma, Afghanistan and other countries.

Christians are the second-largest group of refugees admitted, totaling 27,556. A far larger number of Christian refugees than Muslim have been admitted to the U.S. since fiscal year 2002. The U.S. has admitted 389,712 Christian refugees and 269,395 Muslim refugees in the last 15 years.

Of the refugees who have entered the country so far this fiscal year, more than 2,500 belong to Buddhist traditions while about another 1,500 are Hindu, Pew reported.

The Obama administration set a goal to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees this year. So far about 86 percent of that goal has been met with 8,569 admitted by mid-August. (TAB)