For response at home to attacks overseas, White House brings out Biden

The U.S. House Thursday (Nov. 19) approved a bill that would make it extremely hard for any Syrian or Iraqi refugees to enter the U.S. Obama has promised to veto the legislation, which the Senate will likely consider after its Thanksgiving break.

In the five-page letter, obtained by The Des Moines Register, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry outlined a series of “rigorous” steps the administration takes to approve refugees before they are allowed into the United States.

One top Senate GOP aide said it was unlikely that chamber would consider the House bill. A majority become US citizens.

There are nine different nonprofit groups, six of them faith-based, that help refugees settle in the U.S. Volunteers with the groups help refugees find homes, furniture, school supplies and jobs.

In an illustration of the moderating influence of demographics, however, many California politicians have been navigating a middle ground, concerned about national security yet openly uncomfortable with blaming refugees or immigrants themselves. In an article on Politico, World Relief vice president Jenny Yang is quoted as saying the move to block refugees “does not reflect what we’ve been hearing from our constituencies, which are evangelical churches across the country”. “In the past few weeks though, we’ve heard an terrible lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States”.

Still, it is refreshing for the American people to see our president alert and awake when talking about terrorism.

Former Department of Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff, who served under President George W. Bush, told the Wall Street Journal this week the current refugee vetting system was “secure and reliable”, if not flawless.

Separately Thursday, USA officials acknowledged that two Syrian families-two men, two women and four children-were detained at the Texas border. Not when the USA took in tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s. Not when 125,000 Cuban “Marielitos” arrived by boat in 1980. And not in the desperate aftermath of more recent wars in Bosnia, Somalia, or Rwanda. We win by prioritizing our security as we’ve been doing. Indeed, the hostility toward refugees is a second tragedy and ignores the fact that they are rigorously screened, fingerprinted and run through security and intelligence databases before they are brought to the United States. However, one can explain the record without suddenly believing the government got something right. They said they would be coming to America to commit acts of terror here and we said we’re going to pause that program until the directors of the security apparatuses can sign off and certify that these refugees, individually now, have been vetted. They’ve either been destroyed, stolen or never existed in the first place.

Of course the government’s role in scrutinizing refugees makes (most?) libertarians uncomfortable. They are extremely vulnerable people who are escaping for their lives. “I view that as pretty old-fashioned common sense, you know, being careful and at the same time trying to be proactive”. We are also very appreciative and proud that Governor Cuomo has not joined the ranks of those denying basic human compassion to a population who has already suffered the loss and indignity of having to flee their homeland. Confinement has that effect. If you’re a terrorist and you have a long-term vision of this war against freedom and western powers…if you could come as a refugee and get resettled then maybe you’re part of a sleeper cell. A world of zero risk is not an option, but the risk here is not significant.