AMMAN, Jordan _ In this photo taken Sunday, August 28, 2016, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan, Alice Wells, addresses three Syrian families ahead of their departure to the United States. The families are... (Associated Press) 
 
 AMMAN, Jordan _ In this photo taken Sunday, August 28, 2016, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan, Alice Wells, addresses three Syrian families ahead of their departure to the United States. The families are part of a year-long U.S. resettlement program, and Wells said the target of taking in 10,000 Syrian... (Associated Press) 
 
 AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The U.S. will reach its target this week of taking in 10,000 Syrian war refugees in a year-old resettlement program, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan said Sunday, after meeting families headed to California and Virginia. 
 
 The resettlement program has emerged as an issue in the U.S. presidential campaign, with Republican nominee Donald Trump alleging displaced Syrians pose a potential security threat. 
 
 Alice Wells, the U.S. ambassador to Jordan, said Sunday that keeping Americans safe and taking in some of the world's most vulnerable people are not mutually exclusive. 
 
 "Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States, and Syrian refugees are subject to even greater scrutiny," she said. 
 
 Wells said the target of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. in the 2016 fiscal year will be reached Monday, as several hundred Syrians depart from Jordan over 24 hours. 
 
 The Jouriyeh family, which attended Sunday's short ceremony, is headed to San Diego, California. 
 
 Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, 49, a former construction worker from the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs, said he feels "fear and joy, fear of the unknown and our new lives, but great joy for our children's lives and future." 
 
 Jouriyeh, who suffers from heart problems, will be traveling with his wife, Rajaa, 42, and their four children. Their oldest son, 14-year-old Mohammed, said he is eager to sign up for school in San Diego and hopes to study medicine one day. 
 
 The resettlement program focuses on the most vulnerable refugees, including those who were subjected to violence or torture or are sick. 
 
 Close to 5 million Syrians have fled civil war since 2011. Most struggle to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries, including Jordan, which hosts close to 660,000 Syrian refugees. 
 
 Only a small percentage of Syrian refugees have been resettled to third countries. Instead, donor countries are trying to invest more in job creation and education for refugees in regional host countries to encourage them to stay there instead of moving onward, including to Europe. 
 
 Wells said the U.S. has taken in more refugees from around the world over the years than all other nations combined. ||||| With conditions continuing to deteriorate in Syria, the Obama administration is making a major policy shift by agreeing for the first time to allow thousands of new Syrian refugees into the United States, The Cable has learned. 
 
 The numbers are relatively small: just 2,000 refugees, compared to an estimated two million people who have fled Syria during the civil war. But it's a significant increase from the 90 or so Syrian refugees who have been permanently admitted to the U.S. in the last two years. And it's not entirely uncontroversial. The refugees, mostly women and children, will be screened for terrorist ties -- a process that could take a year or more to complete. 
 
 Unlike previous efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to give temporary protected status to Syrians already in the United States, the State Department effort will bring in Syrians from overseas for permanent resettlement in America. 
 
 "Referrals will come within the next four months. We will need to interview people and perform security and medical checks," Kelly Clements, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration, tells The Cable. 
 
 While aid workers welcome the decision to let in more refugees, concerns remain about the time it will take to process the applications and move them into the U.S. "It's 90 degrees now, but in a few months it's going to snow and people are going to be freezing," Noah Gottschalk, Oxfam America's senior humanitarian policy advisor, told The Cable. "They don't have many options and many are living in unfinished buildings, abandoned shopping malls, schools, mosques and parking garages." 
 
 But the eligible refugees will have to wait out the cold. By Clements' own admission, given application processing times, "We're not likely to see Syrian refugees into those numbers before well into 2014." 
 
 Qualifying refugees include only the most vulnerable individuals -- likely women and children -- who were "exposed to everything from torture to gender-based violence to serious medical conditions" and have no intention of returning to Syria, Clements added. 
 
 Despite their vulnerable condition, even the youngest of children will be thoroughly vetted to ensure they do not pose a national security threat. It's not that they're worried about infants enlisting in al Qaeda. The worry is that terrorist relatives can more easily enter the United States, once they have relatives in America. "Refugees are subject to an intensive security screening process involving federal intelligence, law enforcement, defense, and homeland security agencies," a State Department official said. "The U.S. government makes every possible effort to uphold and enhance the security screening aspects of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Refugees are among the most carefully screened of individuals traveling to the United States." 
 
 In cases such as Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress and the White House have been wary about opening the floodgates to refugees too wide, citing concerns about terrorism. As a result, tens of thousands of refugees have been left waiting at the doors of American embassies there. Humanitarian groups are encouraging Washington to do more in Syria. 
 
 "It's a welcome move by the U.S. but they also need to do more to help the countries supporting refugees and support their infrastructure," said Gottschalk, who has recently visited the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. Another major resettlement country is Germany, which pledged to bring in 5,000 refugees in March 2012 on top of the several thousand Syrians it granteld asylum to in the last two years. However, unlike in the U.S., refugees to Germany are required to return after the fighting subsides. "We're very proud of the fact that the U.S. judges applicants on need and seek out the most needy cases," Erol Kekic, director of immigration at the Church World Service, tells The Cable. 
 
 The referrals come from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, which has been identifying and tracking the millions of refugees flooding into Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and elsewhere since the two-year-old conflict began. Earlier this summer, the United Nations approached Washington about referring Syrian refugees to a group of 27 resettlement countries, including the United States. Now, Clements tells The Cable the U.S. will not only participate but "will encourage other resettlement countries to do the same." 
 
 It's yet to be seen if Congress will push back against the Obama administration's acceptance of the Syrian refugees. (Ordinarily, the U.S. only admits refugees after a conflict has gone on for five years or longer.) Though the State Department's refugee admission program is authorized by a presidential determination, it does involve consultation with Congress. 
 
 Of course, admitting 2,000 Syrians won't even begin to ease the suffering of Syria's refugees; the U.N. estimates that by the end of 2013, 3.5 million Syrians will have fled the country. It's also worth noting the 6.8 million Syrian people in need of humanitarian assistance. Clements emphasized that permanent resettlement is just one means by which the U.S. is contributing to the humanitarian relief effort. "We are exceedingly frustrated to be quite honest because we can't keep up with the humanitarian need especially inside Syria," Clements said. "We are expanding our support for humanitarian assistance through all sorts of angles, but we can't keep up." 
 
 This was post was revised to differentiate between the number of refugees versus asylum seekers the German government has agreed to accept.
– The US will reach its target this week of taking in 10,000 Syrian war refugees in a year-old resettlement program as several hundred Syrians depart from Jordan over 24 hours, the US ambassador to Jordan said Sunday, after meeting families headed to California and Virginia. The resettlement program has emerged as an issue in the US presidential campaign, with Republican nominee Donald Trump alleging displaced Syrians pose a potential security threat. Alice Wells, the US ambassador to Jordan, said Sunday that keeping Americans safe and taking in some of the world's most vulnerable people are not mutually exclusive, the AP reports. "Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States, and Syrian refugees are subject to even greater scrutiny," she said. The resettlement program focuses on the most vulnerable refugees, including those who were subjected to violence or torture or are sick. Close to 5 million Syrians have fled civil war since 2011. Most struggle to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries, including Jordan, which hosts close to 660,000 Syrian refugees. Only a small percentage of Syrian refugees have been resettled to third countries. Instead, donor countries are trying to invest more in job creation and education for refugees in regional host countries to encourage them to stay there instead of moving onward, including to Europe. Wells said the US has taken in more refugees from around the world over the years than all other nations combined. "[I feel] fear and joy, fear of the unknown and our new lives, but great joy for our children's lives and future," says Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, 49, from the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs. ("Anne Frank today is a Syrian girl," Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times.)