White House issues veto threat over refugee bill

“The fact is, we shouldn’t be anxious about any other folks in this situation without first worrying about the people of the United States of America and their security”, Christie told Tapper. “It’s very hard to determine who is the bad and who is the good”, he said.

Defiant Republican governors are demanding that the Obama administration suspend plans to resettle thousands of Syrian refugees in their states.

A woman carries a child as migrants and refugees walk near Gevgelija, after crossing the Greece-Macedonia border, on November 18, 2015. ISIL seeks to exploit the idea that there’s war between Islam and the West, and when you start seeing individuals in position of responsibility suggesting Christians are more worthy of protection than Muslims are in a war-torn land that feeds the ISIL narrative.

Asserting a public demand for a greater measure of protection, Republicans are ready to push legislation through the House erecting fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States. But many Democrats are arguing that blocking the refugees from coming here would a betrayal of American values. President Barack Obama promised a veto, but the White House struggled to limit Democratic defections as last week’s attacks in Paris sparked a political struggle in Congress.

Only 2,219 have been admitted to the United States as refugees, a State Department database shows.

Democrats said the GOP legislation would in effect completely block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from entering the country because officials can not absolutely guarantee that they wouldn’t be threats, and because it would take two years to install new procedures the bill would mandate. Four more governors – including one Democrat, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan – are calling for increased screening and security. House Republican leaders said they expected the measure would pass, although a few of the party’s most conservative members threatened to join Democrats who opposed it.

He said his agency, now in the midst of handling what he says is the largest group of refugees since World War II, does not worry that Christie might cut off the federal resettlement funds that states distribute.

Republican leaders, eager to respond quickly to Friday’s terror attacks in Paris, had described the bill as a middle-ground approach.

Hudson’s proposal would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation director and the director of national intelligence to certify that any refugee admitted to the U.S.is not a security threat. And we want to see communities around the country – and there are a few 180 that routinely welcome refugees – we want to see that continue.

Another official said Syrian refugees get extra scrutiny from the Homeland Security Department’s Fraud Detection and National Security unit, which checks each applicant against classified and unclassified records.

“We don’t believe the directive the governor put in place is necessarily enforceable”, said Erol Kekic, executive director of immigration and refugee programs for Church World Service.

“The status quo is not acceptable”, said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who wrote the bill with Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C. “The American people want us to act in light of what’s happened”. Most went to San Diego or the Sacramento area, but 20 settled in the Bay Area – 16 in Oakland, two in Los Gatos and one each in San Jose and Walnut Creek.

“POTUS [President of the United States] said, “We are not well served when in response to a terrorist attack we descend into fear and panic”. Weiss, whose agency helped Faryabi’s family settle here, said aiding refugees is a valuable exercise in interfaith cooperation.