No safe zone in Syria for refugees

President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his campaign promise to establish "safe zones" in Syria for refugees rather than bringing them to the United States.

"That was absolutely never done," said Mark Hetfield, CEO of HIAS, a group that helps refugees resettle. "It was in an early leaked draft of the first executive order, but that is the closest it has come to seeing the light of day."

More than 5.6 million people have fled Syria since 2011, with most seeking refuge in neighboring countries. Thousands of Syrians have sought refuge in the U.S., but the numbers dropped during the Trump administration as it slashed the total number of refugees allowed into the country.

John Glaser, director of Foreign Policy Studies at the CATO Institute, said he knew of no policy change related to safe zones.

"Safe zones would require a substantially larger military presence on the ground and constant protection from the air," Glaser said. "We'd probably need regional cooperation, too. None of that is happening, I don't think. I'd add that I consider such a shift unlikely this close to the 2020 elections." 

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President Barack Obama didn't succeed on this front either, said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution who specializes in foreign policy. Trump pulled the U.S. out of half of the zone in northeast Syria where the U.S. worked with the Kurds to provide at least some local protection for modest numbers of people, he said.

We asked the State Department if it had any evidence that the administration had created safe zones, and a spokesperson told us the department had no information.

We found no evidence that the Trump administration created safe zones in Syria. We rate this Promise Broken.