Shaker Heights Immigration attorney, Heather Prendergast, tells WKYC Channel 3’s Hilary Golston, Governor Kasich and others have no authority to block Syrian immigrants because the matter of granting refugee status is a federal one.
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European countries, Canada and the United States are facing calls to deny entry to refugees after French investigators said one of the Paris attackers was a Syrian national who may have slipped into Europe as part of a wave of migrants.
Alabama and MI this weekend joined the ranks of Europe’s skittish politicians and said their states would attempt to block Syrian refugees in any US relocation program.
A chorus of Georgia elected officials Monday called for a halt to the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the state and nation, and a few criticized the Obama administration’s handling of the Islamic State. He issued a news release Sunday, saying: “I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm’s way”. The U.S. State Department has said the refugees would be spread across the country.
“The federal government has the power over immigration”, said Deborah Anker, a professor of law at Harvard Law School who specializes in immigration issues. There are now 19 million refugees in the world seeking safety in welcoming countries; 4 million of them are Syrians.
“But focusing that on refugees, vulnerable people who are themselves fleeing violence, would not be the right way to go”, he said. The administration says all of the refugees will be carefully screened.
Gov. Rick Snyder said that the hold he placed on allowing Syrian refugees into MI is a temporary precautionary decision.
Among these 27 states, all but one have Republican governors. The Democrat said Monday that the federal government thinks it can handle an additional 10,000 refugees that the White House said in September that it would accept from Syria.
The Democratic governor also said, “My first priority is to protect the safety of the people of Minnesota”. “I have been assured by the White House that all refugees are subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States”. She says refugees from other nations in SC have been persecuted for being Christians, for their political views or because they were interpreters for American military personnel. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are”, the president said.
Even before Sunday’s revelation, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal complained bitterly in an open letter to President Barack Obama.
Seventy-five percent of the refugees we welcome are self-sufficient within 180 days of arrival – despite many not having fluency in English. The refugees we resettle are hard-working families who fled the countries of their birth due to danger, war, and persecution, and they simply seek safety and freedom.
Gov. Maggie Hassan says the United States should halt the acceptance of Syrian refugees until intelligence and defense officials can assure a strong process for vetting refugees.
“It would be prudent to pause the process of refugees coming to the United States”. Real estate mogul Donald Trump said the US should increase surveillance of mosques, consider closing any tied to radicals and be prepared to suspend a few civil liberties. And the governor’s wish to bring in more refugees is still in the planning and discussion stage.
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Republican candidate Donald Trump called accepting Syrian refugees “insane”.
