The US is preparing to permanently resettle thousands of the millions of Syrians forced to flee their homes during the country’s four-year civil war. But as the lengthy resettlement process speeds up, some human rights advocates are concerned that certain refugees are being unfairly excluded.

So far, the US has accepted only tiny numbers of Syrians: 105 in the year to October 2014 and just 36 in the year before that, although it has stepped up admissions with 350 refugees in the past four months.

Last year officials eased the “material support” rule under US immigration law that was designed to prevent terrorist sympathisers from entering the US but instead acted as a dragnet, ensnaring Syrians with no real connection to terrorism. More than a year later, however, advocates say they still have not seen the exemptions applied to Syrian refugee cases.



“What this means is that a lot of people who need protections and who might fall under those ‘material support’ inclusions – by no fault of their own – aren’t getting protection in the US,” said Noah Gottschalk, senior humanitarian policy adviser for Oxfam America. “And that means that a number of people who are among the most vulnerable in the world are being denied protections that they very much need.”

Representatives from a handful of refugee aid groups said they were still waiting for the the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to release guidelines on how to apply the rule change. Until then, they said, Syrian refugees applying for residence in the US were at risk of being denied entry for an act as small as selling sandwiches to rebel fighters.

“Our main concern at this stage is the absence of that guidance,” said Anna Greene, the policy and advocacy director for US programmes at the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

The US State Department has received more than 11,000 resettlement applications from Syrian refugees in recent months

Greene said the strict inadmissibility bar in effect ignored the realities of living in a war-torn country, especially for Syrians in rebel-controlled areas where interactions with armed groups were unavoidable. She said it was impossible to know how many Syrians would benefit from the new rules until the exemptions were applied, but speculated that the number was significant.

The DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the Guardian. A State Department source said the DHS had approved implementation guidelines for its officers to use when considering an exemption case. It was not immediately clear if the DHS officers had begun applying the exemptions.

“We’ve been told for months and months that this guidance will go out soon,” said Anwen Hughes, deputy legal director with Human Rights First, an advocacy group that pushed for the rule change. “As of 24 February, it still had not gone out, although it sounded as if it was close to being issued. We’d be grateful if it were because that would mark the end of a really long delay between announcement and implementation.”

The US State Department has received more than 11,000 resettlement applications from Syrian refugees in recent months, the vast majority of which are referrals from the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR).

In identifying candidates for resettlement, the UN agency says it looks for the most vulnerable candidates while taking into account a country’s specific security and medical requirements.

As a result of strict immigration standards, advocates say the agency has been discouraged from referring anyone who it believes may be inadmissible under the “material support” rule.

“Because the [inadmissibility provisions] are so broad, and because their impact is also poorly understood, they have had a chilling effect on who is referred to the US for resettlement,” Hughes said. “There is this hesitation to refer people who may trigger the ‘material support’ provision. And as a result, UNHCR has almost become gun-shy about who to refer.”

Larry Yungk, the senior resettlement officer with UNHCR in Washington DC, said the lack of guidance had not stopped the agency from referring refugees to the US for resettlement.



“We’re still at the very front end of this Syrian resettlement, though in the long run it would be good to be clear on what the rules will be,” he said. “But at this stage, we’ve already been able to refer more than 10,000 people to the US already.”

The US has agreed to accept a total of 70,000 refugees from around the world, with 33,000 of the places reserved for people from the Middle East and south Asia, including Syria.

“It’s the natural development of this process,” said Anne Richard, the US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. “It takes 18 to 24 months for refugees who have been referred to us to go through the process to the point where they’ve been approved and can get on an airplane and be brought to the US.”



Richard said the US intended to accept thousands of Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016. She said she did not anticipate security being an issue with the Syrians the UNHCR was referring to the US, as the majority were widows, women and children, elderly people and people with debilitating medical conditions.

“There are challenges with screening and vetting refugees, and selecting them and then helping them start over, and the challenges they themselves face starting over,” Richard said. “But overall the resettlement programme tends to be very successful, and is a very fine American tradition.”