The issue of admitting Syrian refugees has been hotly debated in the United States in the wake of the November Paris attacks that killed 130 people.
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Biden also points out that the majority of the refugees seeking asylum are women and children.
In the White House’s weekly address, Biden said he wanted to “set the record straight” on how refugees can come to the US, including background checks and fingerprinting. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance.
“When we talk about American leadership, American leadership is us caring about people who have been forgotten or who have been discriminated against or who’ve been tortured or who’ve been subject to unspeakable violence or who’ve been separated from families at very young ages”, he said Saturday. “The measure of moral leadership is our response when the world is tested, not what we do in times of peace and prosperity”. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safely, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we can not be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. I really do. I don’t dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There’s nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe.
Regrouping from an embarrassing defeat in the House, the White House tried to change the subject away from its Syrian refugee program on Friday, instead calling for changes that could prohibit some people from bypassing the traditional visa system to enter the American homeland.
“Let’s say France has had 2,000 people leave to go and fight”, Feinstein said after a closed-door meeting with homeland security officials Wednesday night.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said the bill distracts from more significant vulnerabilities – such as the State Department’s visa waiver program, which a year ago allowed 20 million visitors from 38 countries access to the US with less rigorous vetting.
-A referral by the UNHCR to the USA, after which a resettlement support center contracted by the State Department conducts interviews, collects documents and initiates a security check conducted by the US government.
“And to address the specific terrorism concerns we’re talking about now, we’ve instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees”.
A day after the House overwhelmingly backed onerous hurdles for Syrian refugees, White House officials said President Barack Obama’s intention to veto the bill hadn’t wavered, even though it passed with a veto-proof majority – including 47 members of his own party.
The White House said the House bill creates “unnecessary and impractical requirements”, noting the current screening process takes up to 24 months.
“And unlike in Europe, refugees don’t set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted”, he said. “Military strategists are great, we should let them solve this”.
Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks.
He called Islamic State a “gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology” and said shutting out refugees would “play right into the terrorists’ hands” by increasing tensions between Muslims and the West. In addition to HIAS and CWS, they are: the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, and World Relief.
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“The only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves”. That’s how they win. “We must continue to have compassion for others, but we must also maintain the safety of Iowans and the security of our state”.
