U.S. Rep. Chris Smith said that IS militants began committing genocide against Yezidis and Christians in Iraq in 2014, and "three years later, they are still not receiving the assistance they need from the United States and so their survival in their ancient homelands is in jeopardy."
About 100,000 Christians -- among them more than 60,000 Syriac Catholics -- were expelled from the Ninevah Plain by the Islamic State group in the summer of 2014 as the militants campaigned to expand their reach into Iraq.