The Wall Street Journal
ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan—United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, touring a sprawling refugee camp and other facilities in Jordan serving refugees, vowed support on Sunday for those displaced by the region’s conflicts.
As she stood overlooking the camp—which has become Jordan’s fourth-largest city—Ms. Haley said the U.S. would remain the top provider of humanitarian aid for the Syria conflict. The six-year-long Syria conflict has killed 400,000 and displaced millions, according to the U.N.
“We’re the No. 1 donor here through this crisis, that’s not going to stop,” Ms. Haley said in an interview after U.N. officials briefed her on the camp. She also took a tour of a supermarket, viewed vocational training classes and met with eight women who live there.
Ms. Haley said her open-armed approach to refugees didn’t conflict with President Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding Syrian refugees.
Her pledge comes as the administration looks to cut funds to U.N. programs and is battling in court to impose strict limits on refugees and immigration. The U.S. has provided $6.5 billion in humanitarian aid to the conflict since 2012, mostly under the Obama administration.
Ms. Haley’s visit to Zaatari Sunday was part of a packed four-day schedule in Jordan and Turkey, where she said she hopes to take stock of conditions for refugees in camps and the quality of other services provided to them.
On Monday she will meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, visit the U.S. Embassy in Amman and tour a facility that provides psychological support to Syrian schoolchildren. Later Monday she travels to Turkey to meet Turkish officials and visit a refugee camp.
“I’m here to make sure that we’re doing everything that the United States can possibly do on the ground to make sure they know that we love our Syrian brothers and sisters,” Ms. Haley said.
The trip is her first as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
In the less than five months she has been on the job, Ms. Haley has emerged as a leader in articulating President Donald Trump’s foreign policy. At times, she has taken a view more in line with the foreign-policy establishment Mr. Trump railed against on the campaign trail.
Ms. Haley, for example, was the first Trump administration official to suggest that Mr. Trump might respond militarily to a chemical weapons attack in Syria’s Idlib province in April. After the U.S. did so, she told the U.N. Security Council the U.S. would be prepared to strike again.
Ms. Haley spoke about her admiration for the Syrian people throughout Sunday’s events. Her stops included a visit to a border crossing between Jordan and Syria that is a main hub for humanitarian aid deliveries; a U.S.-built school in Amman where Syrian and Jordanian children take lessons; and an airport to inspect World Food Program aid that will be airdropped into Deir Ezzour, Syria.
Her words, as well as the numerous hugs, kisses on the cheeks and handshakes she exchanged with Syrian refugees Sunday sharply contrasted with Mr. Trump. Early in his presidency, he moved to ban all Syrian refugees from entering the U.S.—a move that is being held up in court—and has described them as potential security risks.
“The fact that I’m here shows we want to see what else needs to be done,” she said, when asked if Mr. Trump’s efforts to cut U.N. funds and his rhetoric about Syrian refugees and other migrants from predominantly Muslim countries interferes with her message.
Ms. Haley said the Trump administration didn’t know enough about Syrian refugees to let them into the U.S., but regardless the U.S. should focus on trying to keep families together and create the right conditions to help them return to Syria.
“From the administration’s standpoint, if they’re going to protect the American people, they have to know who’s coming in,” she said. “Every person I’ve talked to whether it was the group of women, whether it was the families, whether it was the children, anybody, the No. 1 thing they said was ‘we just want to go home.’ ”
Ms. Haley’s trip was her first to Jordan. She traveled with a small group of aides and listened to several briefings on education, aid delivery and refugee camps.
She showed particular interest in a biometric database being used at Zaatari instead of debit cards. By using eye scans at the grocery store, people briefing Ms. Haley said they could avoid fraud as well as have detailed information about the families they were helping. The system has potential applications in refugee resettlement as well, officials said. She later watched several people use the system at a grocery store at the camp, including a man whose face and head was covered in bandages.
She later nodded solemnly as eight women who lived at Zaatari, some who had been there as
long as six years, described their children’s psychological trauma related to the Syria conflict and how desperately they wanted to return home and resume their studies. Ms. Haley asked them if they ever thought of leaving the refugee camp.