Special to WorldTribune.com

The current system for admitting refugees is heavily stacked against Christians, despite the fact that it is the Christians that have been targeted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) for slaughter. Some 350,000 Christians have been forced to flee their homes.

Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United States has admitted 2,184 Syrian refugees. Of those, only 53 (2.4 percent) are Christians while 2,098 (96 percent) are Muslims, according to State Department statistics that were updated on Nov. 16.

Critics have pointed out that the overwhelming majority of Muslims (98 percent) leaving Syria are Sunnis, who have not been targeted by ISIL. Christians, however, are often unable to leave the country.

Arkansas Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman have called for a temporary moratorium on Syrian refugees.

‘The United States’ reliance on the United Nations for referrals of Syrian refugees should also be re-evaluated,” the senators said.

“That reliance unintentionally discriminates against Syrian Christians and other religious minorities who are reluctant to register as refugees with the United Nations for fear of political and sectarian retribution.”

Syrian Christians generally avoid UN refugee camps because they are targeted there as well.

Christians fleeing ISIL “seldom go to the main refugee camps in neighboring countries because they are marginalized, abused, and at serious risk of violence in these Muslim-majority shelters,” according to Patrick Sookhdeo, international director of Barnabas Fund, a charity campaigning to help rescue Christians from Syria.

Sookhdeo says Western governments “must understand that vulnerable Christians are being overlooked in rescue program that take only those in the camps to safety. Fully aware of the victimization that is likely to await them in refugee camps, Iraqi and Syrian believers are mainly taking shelter in schools, churches, and apartments, or with relatives where possible.”

  Christian refugees targeted for execution at home, fear UN camps, just 53 Christians, rarely admitted by U.S., Sen. John Boozman, Sen. Tom Cotton, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, WorldTribune.com