The horrific images of hundreds of dead Syrian men, women and children, victims of an apparent chemical attack outside Damascus by forces loyal to Bashar Assad, should leave no doubt that Syria's civil war requires international action, not least for the civilians trapped in harm's way.

In March 2012, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that, "due to the violent upheaval and deteriorating situation in Syria," eligible Syrian nationals in the U.S. could apply for Temporary Protected Status, meaning they would not be forced to return to their war-torn country. That status has been extended through March 2015.

At that time, the United Nations estimated death toll in Syria had just surpassed 8,000. Today, the death estimate exceeds 100,000. More than 1.6 million refugees have flooded Syria's neighboring countries and 4.25 million Syrians are internally displaced. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees projects that by the end of this year the number of refugees will reach 3.45 million.

Yet the conflict in Syria has not been deemed critical enough by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to qualify hundreds if not thousands of Syrian civilians for humanitarian parole, which offers a temporary path into the U.S. for those able to demonstrate an urgent humanitarian need. These are by no means permanent visas. According to the DHS, the parolee is granted admission into the U.S. for "a period of time that corresponds with the length of the emergency or humanitarian situation."

Humanitarian parole is determined on a case-by-case basis. But a country's circumstances are taken into account and in some cases critical in making such a determination. For example, after the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the DHS announced a humanitarian-parole policy allowing orphaned children from Haiti to enter the U.S. temporarily to receive care. Prior to that, other groups such as refugees fleeing Cuba and those escaping former Soviet countries were granted parole.

I am an American of Syrian descent, so this is a personal issue. Some of my family members in Syria have fled—to Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine—but most have been denied visas. My grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins have endured repeated shelling in their suburban neighborhood, approximately 20 minutes outside of Damascus. They have been forced from their home at gunpoint by the Assad regime.

The business that my grandfather built, and that has sustained my family for generations, was torn down by the Syrian government last year. My family members have applied for visas to Saudi Arabia, Germany, Dubai and the U.S., countries in which they have immediate relatives and an existing support system. All have denied them.

Humanitarian parole does not bypass normal visa requirements nor does it grant immigration benefits, so a visa must be applied for concurrently. It would, however, give refugees a chance to survive what is clearly a humanitarian disaster—if not a crime against humanity—in today's Syria.

President Obama announced the Atrocities Prevention Board in April 2012 as  way to enhance America's ability to prevent and respond to mass atrocities and genocide. While noble in its ambition, the board fails to include in its list of actions taken to protect civilians what I consider the most obvious: Get civilians out. Allow innocent people to escape until conditions are safe enough to return.

The alternatives are to stay home and hope to survive, or flee to a refugee camp, live in squalor, and wait patiently to be registered and resettled by the inundated UNHCR, the U.N.'s refugee agency. Some of my family has fled temporarily (during the most intense fighting) to Lebanon, where the majority of Syrian refugees are being absorbed. But even there refugees are faced with few if any jobs, extreme overcrowding (in some cases, a 20 x 40 foot storage unit for 19 people) and limited access to basic amenities such as water and power.

The U.N. estimates that Lebanon officially hosts 592,520 Syrian refugees; Jordan, 468,506; Turkey, 425,672; Iraq, 155,258 and Egypt, 90,728. But the real numbers are far higher, and sure to continue climbing. In camps such as Zaatari in Jordan, refugees are faced with primitive, overcrowded conditions, violence against women, and exploitation by a burgeoning criminal network. These countries are under tremendous pressure to maintain open borders while their economies are strained and domestic tensions are rising.

The burden is not being shared internationally. To put things in perspective, the U.S. has committed to accepting 70,000 refugees mainly from Iraq, Burma and Bhutan in fiscal year 2013. That's 0.02% of the U.S. population. The influx of Syrian refugees has increased the population of Lebanon alone by more than 13%.

How many more chemical attacks and mass killings must Syrian civilians endure before the U.S. and other Western countries offer them a way out? The international community has failed the Syrian people. They have failed my family. Now is the time to get innocent people out of harm's way. That can begin by granting Syrians humanitarian parole.