Republican Gov. Robert Bentley announced Sunday that he would refuse Syrian refugees relocating to the state, saying: “I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm’s way”.
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That could allow Republicans to block President Barack Obama’s goal of bringing 10,000 more Syrian refugees to the US during the current budget year.
Scott said in his letter Monday that Florida does not have the authority to stop the relocation of Syrian refugees to the state, but he said that he has ordered the Florida Department of Children and Families to reject any relocation requests that it receives.
The Paris terrorist attacks have intensified a debate in Washington over whether the USA should allow Syrian refugees to enter the country.
The two say Fallin should join other governors in denying refugees entry into their states. 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. He said that no refugees should be permitted into the USA from Syria “unless they be Christian refugees that are facing genocide”, and said that the spending bill should contain language specifying as much.
Members of the governor’s staff said that Deal sent a letter to the president saying his move to suspend the arrival of Syrian refuges was the right thing to do in order to keep people in Georgia safe.
The Refugee Processing Center says 218 Syrian refugees have arrived in California this year.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of SC, GOP candidate for president, was one of those who supported accepting more Syrian refugees. “The executive order signed today orders all state agencies to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in our state”.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey hit on the issue at a congressional hearing last month, when he told lawmakers, “If someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them”.
The Syrian refugees who have been admitted into the U.S.so far are spread out over 36 states in 138 cities and towns.
As of August, the US had resettled more than 1,250 Syrians. In a few cases they can be referred by a US embassy or non-governmental agency.
It is not clear, however, what governors could actually do to stop refugees from resettling in their states.
The Paris shooting and questions over whether to accept people fleeing war-torn Syria also extended to the White House and presidential campaign trail.
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“We’re looking at all of our options about how do we make sure that something like this doesn’t happen coming here to us with refugees”, Ryan said. As a state official, however, he doesn’t necessarily have the legal authority to prevent that.
