“This is more than about refugees”, Harper says, “we need to keep our eye on the bigger picture”.
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Spokesman for the Texas commission Bryan Black said the state will continue to follow the instructions of governor Greg Abbott, who has called for Texas to withdraw from participation in the resettlement of Syrian refugees.
U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, a first-term Democrat, called the meeting in response to statements by more than 25 governors including Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker, a Republican, that the United States should halt or slow its acceptance of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war following this month’s deadly Paris attacks.
But he does disagree with Deal about trying to impose a total ban on Syrian refugees.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports they say that the governor didn’t have the authority to block refugees and that even if he did, it would run counter to everything the city stands for. At the same time, President Barack Obama and French President François Hollande held a joint press conference and called for increased cooperation to fight the Islamic State. We’re not picking the most educated, we’re not picking people who necessarily want to come to the United States. Local officials, including Mayor Ivy Taylor and Councilman Ron Nirenberg, said yesterday that San Antonio would welcome refugees, despite the rhetoric from some of the state’s other elected officials.
Separately, Sandy Khabbazeh, 26, a refugee who fled Aleppo in September 2014 and now lives in Oakland, New Jersey, described the current USA vetting process for refugees as extensive.
Still, some governors did not budge on the administration’s plan to relocate 10,000 refugees from warn-torn Syria in the present fiscal year. None of them have been arrested or deported because of terrorist activity. Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12).
The political debate has focused on two programs: one that helps refugees settle in the United States and one that allows some travelers to make short business or tourist trips without a visa. The Departments of State and Homeland Security assess the backgrounds of every single refugee prior to entry to the U.S.to ensure that individuals are not a threat to US citizens. In recent days, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including all three Nebraska congressmen, voted to pass the American Security Against Foreign Refugees (SAFE) Act. Excluding specifically Syrians from our federally funded resettlement program or other support services may violate federal law, which we would be legally bound not to do. Really? How can the government effectively screen 10,000 foreigners, most of whom have no documented past?
Vanderhoof stated that all the refugees biographic and biometric data is vetted through a number of federal agency databases, including the State Department, the FBI, the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center. I think that’s a reflection of the seriousness which the Administration places on making sure that we don’t endanger the United States.
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According to the White House graphic, if and when refugees are cleared to come to the US, they are required to apply for a green card within a year – which leads to a new cycle of vetting.
