“All they’re asking for is safety”, said Lucy Carrigan, spokeswoman for the nonprofit International Rescue Committee, which is coordinating the Dallas resettlements.
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Saying there is no threat of harm from 21 Syrian refugees, including 12 children, who are due to arrive in Texas in the next week, the Obama administration urged a judge Friday to reject the “speculative and uninformed fears” of state officials who are working to halt the flow of refugees. Professor Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the immigration clinic at the University of Houston, said “the state’s attempt to prevent or block Syrian refugees could reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to interfere with the federal executive power to regulate and enforce immigration”.
Legal experts were not surprised by the move, since the state has no authority over immigration or refugee resettlement, and the federal government has been informing the state about the refugee vetting process and the resettlement program. A Syrian family originally scheduled to arrive in Dallas Friday remained in NY while the legal challenges were being contested.
However, Paxton is still going forward with the lawsuit.
“Our state will continue legal proceedings to ensure we get the information necessary to adequately protect the safety of Texas residents”, Paxton said.
Texas has taken in around ten percent of all refugees coming to the United States in recent years, making it the number one state for refugee resettlement. On Thursday, Abbott tweeted a link to a story about the shooting and added, “Another example of why Texas is taking a strong stand”.
“We think it is a very good first step toward ultimately getting back on track to get Syrian refugee families settled in Texas”, she said.
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“(Texas) has made no showing that these refugees pose any threat, much less an imminent one, to the safety or security of Texas residents or any other Americans”, according to the federal government’s brief. The family’s expected home is a few miles from the complex where a Liberian man lived a year ago before being hospitalized for Ebola.
