国际英语新闻:Obama: Refugee Tide is World's Problem

Some relief organizations have also urged the U.S. to do more.

In a Thursday statement, the International Refugee Committee said the U.S. was “fully equipped to respond in a far more robust way.”

A commitment to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees is “barely a token contribution, given the size and scale of the global emergency,” said New York-based Human Rights First.

On the other hand, some U.S. lawmakers have voiced concerns about a Syrian refugee influx.

Obama wants to “surge thousands of Syrian refugees” into the United States despite intelligence and law enforcement warnings that “we do not have the intelligence needed to vet individuals from the conflict zone,” said Representative Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who is chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican presidential candidate, said he was open to the possibility of admitting more Syrian refugees but was concerned that individuals with terrorist ties could slip in.

The United States has accepted a total of about 1,600 refugees from Syria since the start of the country’s crisis in 2011.