The Obama administration has not only welcomed more Muslim refugees than ever to the United States this year, but an analysis of State Department figures show that they also outnumbered Christian refugees for the first time.
According to the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the U.S. in fiscal 2016 compared to 37,521 Christians. Both made up the bulk of 85,000 fiscal 2016 refugees.
To mark #InternationalMigrantsDay this Sunday, here are our key findings about international migration trends https://t.co/LIbfm7dcFA pic.twitter.com/cTCvWKkxQq
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) December 16, 2016
A Pew Research analysis this week revealed the detailed number and placed the annual percentages at 46 percent Muslim and 44 percent Christian.
The report also found that since 1990, the U.S. has welcomed nearly four times as many immigrants than the nearest country. Some 46 million have poured into the U.S, followed by Germany at 12 million.
“Among destination countries, the U.S. has more international migrants than any other country,” said Pew.
President-elect Trump has promised to review U.S. immigration and refugee policies, and promised to stop illegal immigration and provide better security reviews of those coming from war-torn nations, most of which are in the Muslim world.
Pew’s review was done to mark International Migrants Day.
The broad report that is also a review of annual migration numbers found that the most well-worn path to America has been through Mexico and that the number of world refugees is almost as high as after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when those from former communist countries flooded into the West.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
