COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — While Republican front-runner Donald Trump continues to make waves nationally for his comments about banning Muslims from traveling to the country, lawmakers in two very different states are proposing that all refugees register with the government.
Registration bills are being proposed in both New York State and in South Carolina, where if refugees commit an act of terrorism, their sponsors, under the bill, could be held liable.
The South Carolina lawmakers say they are less concerned about a possible constitutional challenge than a possible terrorist threat coming to the state.
Opponents, however, say the measure is out of character for a state that often espouses the importance of Christian hospitality and loving your neighbor.
“I want us to be who we have always been — a welcoming people,” said Sen. Kevin Johnson, D-Manning, who is helping lead the fight against the bill.
Sponsoring Sen. Kevin Bryant said the bill has three components: a registry of all refugees; civil liability for sponsors of refugees from counties considered state sponsors of terror by the federal government (currently Iran, Sudan and Syria) for crimes committed by refugees; a prohibition on the state spending any money on refugeesand their families.
Bryant said the goal of the bill is to protect people’s safety. Nearly 850 refugees from a number of countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East have come to South Carolina since 2010, with 87 arriving since last summer. The Anderson Republican said if only one of them were to conduct a terrorist attack it would be devastating.
Instead, he said people in South Carolina can show their compassion by giving to relief organizations that helprefugees elsewhere.
“Why should we bring one refugee here when we could spend the same money and help 10 in their part of the world?” Bryant said.
A challenge to the South Carolina law is likely because the law singles people out by county of origin and seems bent toward discriminating against Muslims, said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“If it is not illegal, it is at least un-American,” Hooper said.
South Carolina senators debated the bill Wednesday and Thursday and would likely come back to it next Tuesday. Bryant is talking to Democrats about tweaking the proposal to allow some state money to be spent on refugeefamilies, like for public education.
The bill was introduced as the ongoing civil war in Syria has created thousands of refugees and European countries have placed pressure on the U.S. to take in some of the people fleeing the violence. But terror attacks in Paris and California have heightened worries that refugees angry with the United States could get into the country.
The New York bill was introduced by state Sen. Terrence Murphy, a Republican who represents a district in the lower Hudson Valley.
It requires refugees to register with the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, be fingerprinted and have the office monitor their activities for year or until they become permanent residents, whichever happens first.
“While the state may lack the ability to block refugees from coming here, we do have the authority and responsibility to begin tracking who these people are, where they are coming from and to monitor the situation for potential threats,” Murphy said when he introduced the bill.
But the New York Immigration Coalition, comprised of almost 200 groups that work with immigrants and refugees, has called on other senators to kill the measure, calling it a “heinous bill that treats refugees who are fleeing from violence and conflict like criminals.”
Mike Bullock, a spokesman for the National Conference of State Legislatures, says there are no state registration laws on the books and the South Carolina and New York measures are the only two now proposed.
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Bruce Smith in Charleston contributed to this report.
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Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jeffrey-collins
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" Are there no prisons?.. Are there no workhouses?" …
do the bills also include provisions for tattooing their registration number on the inside of their forearms and maybe using pink ink for suspected LGBT so if they pass a ‘religious freedom’ act people will know who they can discriminate against?
It’s not enough to have an actual border wall…now they want virtual walls within the US.
But I do like that sponsor liability idea, but with a slight tweak. Let’s have all Wall Streeters be sponsored, and have that sponsor held liable for any misdeeds committed by the sponsee.
It’s not easy to propose domestic legislation that will actually increase the odds of a terrorist attack, but I think they’ve managed it here.
Let’s say I’m a scary brown wicked jihadist Mooslim ISIS/al-Qaeda so-and-so evildoer. I can probably think of easier ways to attack the American homeland than sending some faux-refugee sleeper agent through the insanely long and narrow pipeline that leads to the US. But now at least there’s a tiny, tiny upside, which is that in addition to whatever damage my attacker can do when he’s done waiting in line for years, he’ll get some well meaning non-racist/non-Islamophobic sponsor in trouble. And that will fan the flames of the war between the two factions in American politics–and it’ll help the ones on my side. (I.e., the ones who are helping me create more scary wicked jihadists ISIS fighters.)
Good work, boys.
It would seem that since all refugees are vetted through a rather rigorous and lengthy process and have refugee visas, they’re already “registered” and known to the government. They are required to provide their address to the USCIS. They also have to apply for a green card within a year after admittance to the US.
Republicans just want to do some more fear-mongering, since they do nothing else well.