In a letter this week, the Office of Refugee Resettlement threatens states concerned about resettling Syrians with punitive responses if they refuse to accept the refugees.
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The US president’s administration told state resettlement officials states can not deny benefits and services to refugees based on their country of origin or religious affiliation.
The refugee question has become an increasingly political one, with several 2016 candidates proposing barring refugees from the region in general, or potentially just the Muslims in particular. In fact, the Pilgrims’ land patent made them entrepreneurs, not refugees. The House has passed a bill that would effectively ban Syrian refugees altogether despite the most stringent screening policies in the world.
In his address, Obama quoted from letters he had received from Americans welcoming Syrian refugees.
Simon Henshaw, principal deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said at a November 19 media briefing that the USA resettled 1,682 Syrian refuges in year ending September 30.
“Those who imply that the United States has been uniquely hesitant among its allies to take in refugees seem to be ignoring wealthy Gulf Arab nations like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which largely refuse to take in refugees because of security concerns”, Axelrod said in an email to VOA.
“People should remember that no refugee can enter our borders until they undergo the highest security checks of anyone traveling to the United States”, he said in his address to mark Thanksgiving.
More than 24 governors have come out publicly in recent weeks stating that Syrian refugees would not be welcomed in their states.
The letter sent Wednesday, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, largely tracks with what legal experts have been saying since Abbott and other governors said they would not accept Syrian refugees due to security concerns fueled by terrorist attacks in Paris.
Over the next year, Obama plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees who are fleeing Islamic extremists fighting in the five-year-long Syrian civil war, which has largely been fueled by the involvement of the United States and its allies who are aiding the rebels trying to overthrow the Syrian government. Obama claims his stringent interviews of refugees will sort out the terrorists. How?
The Obama administration sees such screening as impractical and impossible.
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State refugee coordinators are consulted by the federal government and the nine refugee resettlement agencies that have contracts with the government, but that consultation is largely to ensure the refugees are settled in cities with adequate jobs, housing and social services.
