Abbott said he is using the comments of the White House Director of National Security, who testified that there is “no way” to properly and completely determine that Syrians being allowed into the US are not terrorists, and by blindly allowing these Syrians to resettle in Texas, he is abrogating his basic responsibility to keep Texans safe.
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“I think that it’s the first sign that Texas is beginning to see the light”, said Cecillia Wang of the ACLU, which is defending the resettlement group in the lawsuit that was filed in Dallas federal court.
Next week 21 Syrian refugees, mostly children, will be resettling in Dallas and Houston.
The refugees coming to Dallas include two children ages 3 and 6; their parents and grandparents.
The Obama administration’s plans to resettle Syrian refugees fleeing that country’s civil war have sparked controversy following the Paris terror attacks.
After the feds announced the arrival of the families, Texas withdrew its request to block the families’ arrival.
In its opposition, the Justice Department said Texas had not demonstrated that those refugees, comprising families with children and a single woman seeking to reunite with her mother, pose an imminent threat of irreparable harm. Those reports were later deemed unfounded, but not before more than governors in more than 30 states declared that they would not accept any Syrian refugees in their state.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had claimed that the IRC handed over few details about the refugees and no assurances about whether they posed a threat to public safety. The Obama administration also said the state had “speculative and uninformed fears about security”.
The U.S. government and relief groups on Friday asked a federal judge in Texas to reject the state’s efforts to block Syrian refugees.
The government is obligated to consult with states about process, procedures and the overall distribution of refugees around the country – but that doesn’t mean a consultation about every individual refugee, the Department of Justice says. “Whatever “advance consultation” and “close cooperation” mean, this is not it”, the state says. Nine others are scheduled to arrive in Houston on Thursday. “Our state will continue legal proceedings to ensure we get the information necessary to adequately protect the safety of Texas residents”.
“The mayor said he believed it would only be temporary and scolded Texas for not letting the refugees into the state”.
According to the brief, DOJ argued that the federal government, not the states have jurisdiction to settle refugees under the Refugee Act of 1980 and that the federal government has kept Texas up to date on its intentions to place Syrians in the state.
The International Rescue Committee plans to relocate a family of six Syrians to Dallas on December 7 and another family of six Syrians to Houston the same day.
The state has requested that the court set a December 9 date for a hearing on an injunction to halt Syrians from resettling.
That number is relatively small for Texas – a hotbed for refugee resettlement – but the count of Syrian refugees was expected to increase significantly in the next year as the United States prepares to take in as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees. Another IRC staffer, Daley Ryan, insisted: “The refugees are the most vetted population entering the United States, bar none”. Abbott, and other governors and politicians across the USA, contend that Islamic State terrorists could be among those refugees.
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“We have had a strong and collaborative relationship with the State for the past 40 years, which has benefitted refugees and local communities”.
