BURBANK >> Syrian-American Hadaya Joseph Hadaya has watched with anguish as his large family has scattered farther across the globe as a result of Syria’s bloody civil war.

The Assyrian, whose ancient Christian community has been among those targeted by the Islamic State, has a cousin who fled to Scotland after he was kidnapped by extremists in Syria, held for weeks and robbed.

One of his sisters was smuggled to Istanbul and is now seeking asylum in Sweden. Two other sisters who fled are in the United States and are working on getting permission to stay. Hadaya also has a brother-in-law working with U.S. State Department officials in the Middle East to come to the U.S. with his three children.

Some Syrians are reluctant to leave, but the situation is getting more dire as the civil war nears its fifth year, Hadaya said.

“If you give them the choice (to come to America), there will not be enough airplanes to fly for the next two months,” Hadaya said from his Burbank home.

Since the civil war broke out in the spring of 2011, dozens of Syrian refugees have settled in San Diego and smaller numbers in Southland communities including Glendale, Pasadena, West Covina, Van Nuys, Chatsworth and Moorpark, according to the State Department. The vast majority have settled in the last 12 months.

THE CONFLICT

Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died in the conflict involving the Assad regime, rebel groups, Islamic extremists and others. More than 7 million have been displaced within Syria and more than 4 million have been forced to seek safety outside the country.

President Barack Obama announced recently the U.S. will admit at least 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement this fiscal year, which began this month.

But some Southern California activists say that isn’t enough. The United States admitted 1,682 Syrian refugees this past fiscal year, up from 105 the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. California admitted 179 of those Syrian refugees this past year, up from 19 in 2014.

CRISIS ‘NOT GOING AWAY’

The ceiling for the total number of refugees from around the globe entering the United States this fiscal year was raised from 70,000 to 85,000 — and the plan is to raise it to 100,000 in 2017, according to federal officials.

Martin Zogg, executive director of the International Rescue Committee in Los Angeles, called the new cap “pretty insignificant” in light of the need. His organization is calling for the admission of 100,000 Syrian refugees into the United States beyond those from other troubled countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Burma.

“The (Syrian) conflict is not going away, and as a result, the refugee crisis is not going away,” Zogg said. “It’s untenable. The events in Europe of the last many weeks have demonstrated that it is simply not tenable to allow 4 million people to be driven from their homes quite apart from the moral imperative.”

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to Europe as images of dead children’s bodies from capsized boats in the Mediterranean have stunned the world. Many European countries are grappling with how and to what extent they can and should accommodate them.

RESETTLEMENT IN OUR BACKYARD

The IRC in Los Angeles, which is just beginning to receive Syrian refugees, resettled a Syrian family of eight in Pomona and a family of three now in Anaheim in the past few weeks, Zogg said. The organization, which covers a large swath of the Southland, will be resettling another Syrian man this week, he said.

The new cap, he said, will likely result in “a dramatic increase in the number of Syrians resettled here.”

Refugees must be admissible to the U.S. and demonstrate that they were persecuted in the country of their nationality or fear persecution due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. They also cannot be firmly resettled in another country.

In agreement with the State Department, the IRC is one of several local resettlement agencies that provide newly arrived refugees with safe housing, food, health screenings and immunizations as well as access to employment services, social services and English as a second language instruction. They also provide each refugee with about $1,100 in federal money, Zogg said.

SOME OPPOSITION

While the IRC hasn’t felt any backlash from area residents, another resettlement agency, which has received many offers of help and support for Syrian refugees, said it has received a few calls in recent days “from folks who were not in support” of resettlement of this population.

“I think it’s just the sentiment that people are linking them with terrorist activity as a result of their religious activities,” said Lilian Alba of the International Institute of Los Angeles.

In San Bernardino County, members of the Redlands Townhall and Redlands Tea Party Patriots have recently voiced their concern to city council members about the possibility of Syrian refugees resettling there. In turn, local Muslims hosted an Open Mosque Day in an effort to alleviate any concerns the public may have about their religion.

A Syrian refugee family with two young girls recently moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Pomona after living in a hotel for about five weeks, said Mahmoud Tarifi, board member of the Islamic Center of Claremont. Local Muslim families have rallied around them, he said, and provided them with much needed furniture, rent subsidies for a year, help with doctors visits and other aid.

A CALL FOR MORE

U.S. humanitarian assistance since the start of the crisis has topped $4 billion and the country remains the single largest donor of such assistance to the Syrian people, according to USAID. The administration has also offered temporary protective status to certain eligible Syrian nationals already in the country, allowing them to work and not be deported as long as the situation in their home country remains dangerous.

But Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, argues that more needs to be done to protect the lives of Syrians. He’s been pushing for the administration to extend humanitarian parole to some 20,000 Syrians or up to 7,200 families who have approved immigrant visa petitions but for whom no visa is available due to yearly quotas. This would allow for the temporary entry of these Syrians, who have already been vetted by the Department of Homeland Security, into the country for urgent humanitarian reasons, he said.

“A parole program would grant temporary visas to eligible Syrians and allow them to escape increasingly dangerous conditions, all the while reuniting them with family members in the U.S.,” Schiff said in an email, adding that this is particularly important for religious minorities who have fled in fear of extremist militants.

If granted parole, these Syrians would still be required to pass additional “rigorous security checks” before being admitted to the country, he said.

ASYLUM APPLICATIONS INCREASE

The number of Syrians in the U.S. who have applied for asylum has also risen dramatically in recent years. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received 1,582 applications for asylum in fiscal year 2014, up from 1,335 the previous year and 489 the year before, according to the agency.

There seems to be an uptick locally as well, according to Mahsa Maleki, staff attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, which offers free civil legal services to low-income residents.

However, “we have not seen as many Syrians as you would expect to see given the current crisis,” Maleki said. That could be partly due to the difficulty Syrians have in securing a tourist visa, she said.

“Among the Syrians who are our clients, many of them are hoping that their (asylum) applications are processed faster, that they’re not subjected to lengthy security checks so they can reunite with their families (in the United States) … sooner.”