“States may not deny ORR-funded benefits and services to refugees based on a refugee’s country of origin or religious affiliation”, the letter states.
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In his address, Obama quoted from letters he had received from Americans welcoming Syrian refugees.
Jay Inslee has said the state will welcome refugees and has criticized other governors who have threatened to stop accepting them following last week’s terror attacks in Paris. We must not “close our hearts to the victims of such violence”, the president said.
“No refugee can enter our borders until they undergo the highest security checks of anyone traveling to the United States”, Obama said.
“Decisions concerning immigration and refugee resettlement are exclusively the province of the federal government, and attempts to pre-empt that authority violate both equal protection and civil rights laws and intrude on authority that is exclusively federal”, said ACLU of IN legal director Ken Falk IN a press release.
The House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the refugee plan and intensify refugee screening measures before lawmakers left Washington for the Thanksgiving break.
It’s not possible for us to predict how many Syrian refugees will go where, because the voluntary agencies make those decisions as refugees clear our security system. Obama stressed in that warnings in that refugees would pose a danger are overblown since people getting in to the country are completely screened. And before approval, all applicants from Syria, just like refugees from any nation worldwide seeking refuge in the US, are subjected to this rigorous scrutiny and an intensive screening process that takes, on average, between 18 and 24 months.
Now, the states can’t outright refuse them, but they can deny the release of federal funding for local refugee programs that serve Syrians.
Obama used part of his address to reassure skeptics that his refugee resettlement program is extremely thorough.
Mr. Obama has committed to resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the US this fiscal year and has been stunned by the vehement reaction from Americans who overwhelmingly oppose his plan in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris. “Second, they run contrary to American values, and third, they would do nothing to strengthen our security”.
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) slammed the Obama administration as “hypocritical” over the letter. Using homeland security as their main point, some Congress members wanted legislation that will tighten further the conditions in which refugees could be admitted to the country.
