“We will not have a religious test, only a security test”, Ryan said, alluding to the position of a few Republicans that only Syrian Christians should be allowed to seek refugee status in the United States.
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The U.S. House of Representatives is planning to vote Thursday on a bill sponsored by the Republican majority that would pause the Obama administration’s program to resettle Iraqi and Syrian refugees to the United States.
President Obama is now visiting the Philippines, but his Twitter account was very active on Wednesday, arguing that admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees would be the right thing to do and that turning them away would betray America’s “deepest values”. “But that doesn’t stop us from focusing our program to make sure nobody comes in who might be a terrorist”.
“We are not well served when in response to a terrorist attack we descend into fear and panic”, Obama said yesterday from Manila.
Only around 2,200 Syrian refugees have been allowed into this country in the last four years and they already go through a comprehensive vetting process that can take as much as three years, including biometric screening, fingerprinting and additional classified controls. “And it’s our obligation”, Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said on the House floor.
“To know that we are welcoming people from Syria that have been here for years and are now earning citizenship, I think it speaks volumes of our country”, said Alex Padilla, California Secretary of State.
House Republican leaders said they expected the measure would pass, although a few of the party’s most conservative members threatened to join Democrats who opposed it. The U.S.is already selective, usually considering for resettlement only refugees deemed “vulnerable”, such as widows, unaccompanied children or political enemies of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
“I’m so happy. I’m so excited”, she said. The organization continues to urge Congress to reject any bill that would halt or pause USA resettlement of Syrian refugees. Jeff Flake planned to introduce a bill that would restrict visas for any individual who had been in Iraq or Syria in the past five years.
Spokesman John Kirby said the US State Department respected the NGO’s decision to re-route the family, but made it clear that the federal government did not agree with state governments blocking refugee settlement.
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Amid intensifying concern over extremists from the Islamic State group infiltrating the West, and as U.S. lawmakers digest reports that several Paris attackers were French nationals, McCaul said lawmakers were also drafting legislation that would tighten the existing visa waiver program. “What this is, unfortunately, is more of the arguments we’ve been hearing that the governor should add his voice to the divisive attacks we’ve heard from others”.
