Responding to announcements from governors that they will not accept Syrian refugees for resettlement in their states, the president of the Church World Service President, the Rev. John L. McCullough, said it was “utterly preposterous” for governors “to falsely assert that the USA refugee admissions program places their states at risk”.
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Meanwhile, the governor said she has confidence in the two refugee processing affiliates in the state.
“What Gov. Rauner and others are missing is that refugees driven from Syria are fleeing violent extremists like the ones that committed the Paris attacks”, the organization said. As such they are now calling on Obama to put on hold the plans after a rumor that one of the Paris attacks terrorists was a Syrian Refugee.
Governors in many states, mainly Republicans, are responding to heightened concerns terrorists might use the refugees as cover to sneak across borders.
They said they are comfortable with the refugees who have come to Oklahoma so far.
Many GOP candidates, already skeptical if not hostile to welcoming refugees, came out even stronger. They were a complete reversal from September, when the Republican presidential contender said US should “play their role” in taking in refugees without committing to a specific number after a photograph of a dead migrant child humanized the migrant influx.
He also wrote to Obama Saturday urging him to “pause the process”, and complained that he was kept in the dark about Syrian refugees as they began arriving in New Orleans earlier this month.
Three Syrian refugees have been brought to the Jenks area since 2012.
He said once Americans are comfortable with the process, he said he would like for the United States to be known as a hospitable country.
“Refugees are the single most scrutinized and vetted individuals to travel to the United States, undergoing more than seven security checks by intelligence agencies, including biometric tests, medical screenings and in-person interviews with Department of Homeland Security officials”.
Over the weekend presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz suggested that Christian refugees should be given priority over Muslims fleeing the horrors of IS in Syria and Iraq, a suggestion angrily rejected by President Barack Obama during a press conference at the G20 meeting in Turkey.
This step presents its own challenges, since funding for Syrian refugees is allocated along with funds to support refugees from other countries. The former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee tweeted that if he did not lead an effort to ban Syrian refugees from America, Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives should be forced from his office. “They’re certainly not saying there have been security threats from recently resettled refugees, because there certainly haven’t been”. Since 1989 about 7,000 refugees have been resettled in Vermont and while none of them are from Syria, there are plans to settle a small number in the state during the current fiscal year.
The governors don’t have legal standing to prevent refugee resettlement, experts say. Ayotte made a similar statement regarding refugees on Monday. People were greatly concerned about the threat posed by Syrian refugees and many wanted to talk directly to Fallin.
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USA government data shows that just under 2,200 Syrian refugees have been admitted into the US since the civil war broke out in March of 2011, and the vast majority of those were in the a year ago.
