DETROIT (AP) — Governors across the U.S. have threatened to stop accepting Syrian refugees following last week’s attacks in Paris, even as experts counter they lack legal authority to block the relocations.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, whose administration recently pledged to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees, argued Monday that the United States needs to allow them because many are fleeing terrorism.
Some state leaders disagree with Obama’s assertion the country can simultaneously welcome refugees seeking safety and ensure citizens’ security. Several have called for a complete halt to resettlement, others for temporary delays and a few seek more information from federal officials on the vetting process.
The Homeland Security Department says refugees face the highest level of security screening of anybody entering the U.S., but officials will work to allay states’ concerns.
Here’s a look at why some states are balking, what federal officials and refugee experts are saying and how the refugee resettlement process works.
WHAT ARE THE STATES’ PRIMARY CONCERNS AND WHAT ARE THEY CALLING FOR?
Governors in many states, mainly Republicans, are responding to heightened concerns terrorists might use the refugees as cover to sneak across borders. Authorities said a Syrian passport was found near one of the attackers in Friday’s deadly attacks, and the Paris prosecutors’ office says fingerprints from the attacker match those of someone who passed through Greece in October.
The governors of several states are calling for the temporary suspension of accepting new refugees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas’ refugee resettlement program not to accept any more Syrians and in a letter to Obama, the Republican also urged scrapping federal plans to accept more Syrian refugees into the country as a whole. He said the federal government can’t perform “proper security checks” on Syrians.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey called for an immediate halt and wrote he was “invoking our state’s right … to receive immediate consultation by federal authorities” to address the state’s concerns. Iowa GOP Gov. Terry Branstad acknowledged governors might lack authority but added he wants more information about refugee placement and the vetting process.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, called the governors’ comments and recommendations “un-American,” adding that rejecting refugees projects “our fears to the world.”
WHAT DO REFUGEE EXPERTS SAY?
Lavinia Limon, president and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigration, said under the Refugee Act of 1980 governors cannot legally block refugees. Each state has a refugee coordinator, a post created as part of that law, she said. Funded by the federal government, the post coordinates resettlement efforts with agencies such as hers and directs federal funds for refugees.
Westy Egmont, director of Boston College’s Immigrant Integration Lab, said the law previously withstood state challenges partly because the federal government has worked to equally distribute refugees being resettled. Some states have worked with resettlement agencies to limit new refugee arrivals to those with family ties to the community while families or individuals with no ties to a specific state have been sent to other locations with better prospects for jobs, housing and integration programs.
WHAT EXACTLY HAS OBAMA PROPOSED AND HOW DOES THE REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM WORK?
The Obama administration has pledged to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next 12 months. The State Department said the refugees would be spread nationwide, though many go on to places where they have family or cultural connections, such as Detroit, New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
According to government statistics, the U.S. has taken about 2,150 Syrians since Oct. 1, 2011 — most in the last year.
Obama said Monday the U.S. needs to continue to accept refugees from Syria because many are fleeing terrorism: “Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both.”
Refugees are generally invited to move to the United States after being referred to a State Department Resettlement Support Center by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In some cases they can be referred by a U.S. embassy or non-governmental agency.
In other cases, potential refugees who are close relatives of people granted asylum in the U.S. or other refugees already in the country can apply directly with the U.S. government. The average wait time for a refugee to be cleared to enter the U.S. is about two years, but often longer for people from Syria and elsewhere.
The Homeland Security Department said refugees being accepted into the United States are subject to the highest level of security screening of anyone coming to the U.S. It added officials will continue to consult with states to allay concerns they have about security.
HOW ARE LAWMAKERS AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES REACTING?
Republican members of Congress called for suspending the Syrian refugee program and threatened to try to stop it. New House Speaker Paul Ryan neither endorsed nor rejected that course.
Many GOP candidates, already skeptical if not hostile to welcoming refugees, came out even stronger. Donald Trump said the U.S. should increase surveillance of mosques, consider closing any tied to radicals and be prepared to suspend some civil liberties.
Ben Carson said, “Until we can sort out the bad guys, we must not be foolish,” and of Syrians already in the U.S., he added: “I would watch them very carefully.”
Calls by GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush to give preference to Christian refugees prompted a sharp rebuke from Obama.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Right now, the odds that refugees are going to turn into terrorists are 0 in 750,000, according to The Economist. Thanks Rachael Firth. Further, a substantial proportion of these persons (though not all) are refugees because we have been meddling in their countries’ affairs. I’m pretty sure we owe them something. For starters, Iraq was largely (though not entirely) safe for Christians, Yazidis, and Sunni and Shia Muslims (Kurds not so much) before we decided that regime change would make the country better. Now, of course, it’s no longer even a country. In Syria, we thought Bashar al Assad was bad. He was. However, those who have replaced him in the regions he has lost are much, much worse — not to mention that they use primarily US weapons. Let’s not even talk about Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran and all the rest. Moral of the story: Don’t drop bombs and arm rebel groups in countries that you don’t know very much about.
We’ve already sorted out the bad guys. They’re you and your fellow Republican presidential candidates, and all the people calling for blood. Yet that doesn’t stop a large number of Americans from being just that: foolish.
We can’t defeat an ideology by killing people. That only creates more adherents faster than we can kill them. That only plays right into their hands.
The only way to defeat these radicals is to make the region the irrelevant piece of desert it once was before the Industrial Revolution addicted us to oil. But that leadership is absent from a government owned by the oiligarchy, the bosom buddies of the head lopping Wahhabi extremists in Saudi Arabia.
This is racism and fear mongering. The threat that any individual could be a criminal is not a good reason to interact with no one. I seriously doubt a terrorist would hide among refugees when a tourist visa is so much easier to get. Think people.
We just had a similar discussion over this when the Ebola outbreak occurred. Governors can’t keep people out of states; all they can do is make noise about it.
This is where you would hope our lofty fucking corporate media would have some semblance of being seen as actual reporters, who are willing to denounce this kind of nonsense and supremacist talk among any candidates with these views…and provide actual facts to this UnAmerican notion and what this country stands for.
But Noooooo. Not the media we have today in this country, which sadly includes many straight news reporters. To them, this is just another opinion among many to be reasonably debated.
So fuck pluralism, fuck what this country was built on through the expansion of immigrant communities throughout our history, fuck the obvious religious bigotry expounded by these candidates. Instead, the matter is treated like just another equally plausible alternative by these assholes.
Un-fucking-believable!