ICC Note: As the U.S. debates what to do militarily in Syria another debate is also raging over what to do for Christians from the country. While as many as 700,000 Christians are believed to have fled the country, only a small number have been resettled into the U.S. Advocates are pushing for a greater emphasis for Christians who are not just fleeing war, but explicit persecution as well.

12/15/2015 Syria (The Hill) – Conservatives are outraged over the small number of Christian Syrian refugees who have been allowed to enter the United States — even as some on the right float a ban on their Muslim counterparts.

The U.S. has allowed just 34 Christians to enter as refugees from Syria since the civil war broke out there more than four years ago, according to the State Department’s most recent available data.

That accounts for just 2 percent of the roughly 2,100 Syrian refugees the U.S. has accepted — disproportionately smaller than the 10 percent of Syrians who are Christian.

While suggestions that the U.S. employs a blanket ban on Christian refugees from Syria have been proved false, leading Republicans are seizing on the issue, arguing the Obama administration should do more to help Syria’s Christians escape the threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The issue is almost certain to come up during Tuesday evening’s GOP presidential debate,which is the first since concerns about refugees spiked following indications that at least one person involved in last month’s killing of 130 people in Paris has disguised himself as a migrant.

“If you’re from Syria and you’re a Christian, you cannot come into this country, and they’re the ones that are being decimated,” GOP front-runner Donald Trump said at a speech in Las Vegas this summer.

Analysts say the small numbers of Christian refugees in the U.S. is a result of many factors, including politics within Syria and across the Middle East.

Yet Republicans appear insistent, and are eyeing steps they can take to speed up the influx Christians — as other refugees are viewed with suspicion.

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