US Admits Record Number of Muslim Immigrants

Brittany M. Hughes | October 6, 2016
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A recent study by Pew found that a record near-half of all refugees that entered the United States in FY2016 were Muslim, marking the highest number of Muslim refugees recorded since religious self-reporting data became available 14 years ago.

According to Pew:

A total of 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the U.S. in fiscal year 2016, making up almost half (46%) of the nearly 85,000 refugees who entered the country in that period, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center. That means the U.S. has admitted the highest number of Muslim refugees of any year since data on self-reported religious affiliations first became publicly available in 2002.

Pew added that “A slightly lower share of 2016’s refugees were Christian (44%) than Muslim, the first time that has happened since fiscal 2006, when a large number of Somali refugees entered the U.S.”

Included in the nearly 85,000 refugees admitted this year were 12,587 Syrians, an admission total that surpassed President Obama’s pledge to admit 10,000 refugees from the war-torn nation in FY2016. Of those Syrian allowed into the United States, 99 percent were Muslim, while less than one percent were Christian.

As MRCTV reported last month, predominantly Muslim countries currently make up the largest single contributor of refugees to the United States when broken down by state religion.

As of August 31, the Obama administration reports it had admitted 72,367 refugees from countries across the globe, about 13,000 shy of its 85,000 fiscal year cap.

Of those, 34,445 refugees admitted were from countries with predominantly Muslim populations. In fact, refugees from mostly-Muslim countries made up about 48 percent of the total number of refugees the United States has admitted in the last 11 months.

According to Pew, government data shows that since 2002, the U.S. has admitted 399,677 Christian refugees (46 percent) and 279,339 Muslim refugees (32 percent). 

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