NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — President Obama made no official statement on the 11th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural disaster in U.S. history which claimed the lives of more than 1,800 people.
The White House touted its Syrian refugee expansion, proclaiming in a statement on Katrina’s anniversary that the 10,000th refugee will enter the U.S. that day.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that we will meet this goal more than a month ahead of schedule,” National Security Adviser Susan Rice said in a statement on the enormous refugee expansion. “Our 10,000th Syrian refugee will arrive this afternoon.”
“On behalf of the President and his Administration, I extend the warmest of welcomes to each and every one of our Syrian arrivals, as well as the many other refugees resettled this year from all over the world,” Rice said in the statement. “We will admit at least 85,000 refugees in total this year, including vulnerable individuals and families from Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Iraq, Somalia, Ukraine, and many other countries.”
As Louisiana and other Gulf Coast residents marked the 11th anniversary of the tragedy that became Katrina, President Obama did not even take to Twitter to share remembrances.
Obama’s verified account tweeted about NASA’s most recent Mars exploration efforts on the day instead.
The day was marked in New Orleans with an annual wreath ceremony by Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D), but no one from the Obama Administration was in attendance. Last year, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made an appearance.
Obama previously criticized former President George W. Bush for what he saw as ignoring the people of the Gulf Coast who were devastated by Katrina, saying “We can talk about levees that could not hold … about a president who only saw the people from the window of an airplane instead of down here on the ground, trying to provide comfort and aid.”
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.