House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Tuesday morning that Republicans have created a new task force to draft legislation in response to the Paris terrorist attacks, and action on pausing or halting Syrian refugees from entering the United States could come as early as this week.
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The attacks in Paris on Friday which killed 129 people have prompted calls from many USA lawmakers, mostly Republicans, to bar all Syrians from entering the country.
Ryan said the House will vote on the issue this week. “But we think it’s simply prudent that for this particular program in this particular situation that we be better guarded against any possible infiltration of ISIS coming through this program”.
It was not immediately clear what the legislation would entail.
“I can’t imagine how it could happen, so no”, Ryan said in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, when asked if he would support Trump’s proposal.
On Monday more than a score of governors, including Iowa’s Gov. Terry Branstad, said they would not permit Syrian refugees to settle in their states.
“It could very well be (part of the budget bill)”, said Mark Walker, R-N.C. “That will be part of the discussion the task force is taking up”. “What Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing is that we bring to this country tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees”, Cruz has said.
“Resettled refugees from Syria have fled persecution and violence, and undergone rigorous security screening by the USA government”, said Alison Parker, a USA expert at the rights watchdog.
Others are aimed at blocking Obama’s program that could take in up to 10,000 Syrian refugees in fiscal year 2016.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, for example, said in a statement Tuesday that she would “like to see the administration more clearly explain how they will ensure that refugees are appropriately and strongly vetted for any potential security concerns”.
“I think in the next 48 hours, we will galvanize around a solution or a series of solutions”, he said. “We’re going to look at it”, said Sen.
Ryan’s comments come a day after a tidal wave of at least 22 GOP governors said that they either oppose accepting Syrian refugees or will not allow any more-either temporarily or permanently-into their states, even as the Obama administration says it will continue to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year.
Several members of Congress have been raising the alarm about Obama’s refugee program, saying that it endangers the country. It states: “The president may admit refugees who face “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion into the U.S”.
The Senate, where Republicans hold a smaller majority than in the House, would also have to approve any legislation on the refugees before it could take effect. “All of this rises above politics”, Mr. Ryan said.
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Not to be outdone by the governors, members of Congress have raced to introduce legislation to suspend or block entirely the admission of Syrian refugees into the United States. Next, the State Department takes over by coordinating with nine private voluntary agencies to place and relocate the refugees in the U.S. a few of those voluntary organizations receive federal funding.
