US set to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees

US authorities have ramped up processing for refugees to see that the administration meets its goal of resettling 10,000 Syrians into the country by 1 October, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress Thursday.

President Barack Obama called for a dramatic increase in the number of Syrian refugees resettled in the US last September.

However bureaucratic red tape, terror fears, concerns about inadequate security checks and congressional efforts to block refugee flows have left the process to host the 10,000 Syrians in the 2016 fiscal year seriously behind target.

Johnson however said Washington had "added security checks to the process where they are warranted" and overcome early hurdles.

The United States has "just about crossed the 5,000 mark" in terms of Syrian refugees, he told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

He said 5,000 to 6,000 more have been "conditionally approved" for US resettlement, subject to security checks.

"So I believe we will make the 10,000," Johnson said.

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After last year's terror attacks in Paris, critics including presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump warned that the Islamic State was seeking to infiltrate the United States through poorly monitored refugee flows.

Earlier this month in congressional testimony, CIA director John Brennan warned that the extremist group "is probably exploring a variety of means" to get operatives into the West "including in refugee flows, smuggling routes, and legitimate methods of travel".

Trump has seized on the issue, demanding an immediate end to US refugee admissions from Middle Eastern nations until a better vetting system is established.

"Our country has enough difficulty right now without letting the Syrians pour in," Trump said in a National Border Patrol Council podcast earlier this month.

"They could be [IS]. They could be who knows. But we're going to stop that immediately," he said.

Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton said last year that Washington should expand the Syrian resettlement programme to 65,000 refugees.

Trump has warned voters that Clinton planned to spend "hundreds of billions of dollars" to resettle Middle Eastern refugees, or enough money to "rebuild every inner city in America", he said last week in a New York speech.

Fact-checking website PolitiFact gave Trump's claim a "pants on fire" false rating.