White House To Offer Governors More Information On Refugees

“Given the tragic attacks in Paris”, he explained in a letter to Obama, “and the threats we have already seen, Texas cannot participate in any program that will result in Syrian refugees – any one of whom could be connected to terrorism – being resettled in Texas”.

In October, only six of the 187 who were resettled in the U.S. were sent to NY, according to the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Norton says the refugee aid groups have asked for a meeting with the governor, but so far Abbott, who is now in Cuba, has not agreed to meet with them.

In a recent statement, California Governor Jerry Brown announced that the state will be admitting Syrian refugees on the condition that the White House releases more information on the vetting process to state officials.

“There’s a heightened level of concern among the nation’s governors” about refugee resettlement in the United States, Brown’s office said.

During a November 17 news conference at the bishops’ meeting in Baltimore, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, CRS board chairman, pointed out that the violent attack that took place in Paris is “precisely the brutality these refugees are fleeing”. The IRC statement on Monday said that to date it had settled eight Syrian refugees in Texas.

That letter to all governors by Secretary of State John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson emphasized how thorough the vetting is and that the government is prioritizing “the most vulnerable of Syrian refugees” for resettlement.

The Texas commission said other resettlement agencies had agreed to find alternative placement options for Syrians who would otherwise relocate to Texas. That includes setting up a process through the National Governors Association and the State Department to keep governors informed every month of refugees settling in their states, broken down by nationality, age range and gender.

The letter noted that the committee “insists on resettling certain refugees from Syria in the near future” and pointed to comments made by the FBI Director James Comey to Congress regarding the difficulty of conducting security checks.

North Dakota Refugee Coordinator Shirley Dykshoorn said Monday that refugees are processed through established volunteer agencies and sites throughout the state.

Omar Jadwat, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, says the state does not have the legal authority to close borders.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has maintained its intention to resettle some 25,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S.by October 2016 and reiterated that the refugee resettlement process – which can take years – is comprehensive and robust.

Almost a third of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter calling on party leaders to ensure that a spending bill block federal funding to resettle refugees from Syria and nearby countries. “Additional precautions have been added with regard to Syrian refugees, and we continually evaluate whether more precautions are necessary”.

“The programs themselves, if they receive money either directly from the Federal Government or through another larger organization that receives these federal dollars, they could certainly continue in their work”, she says.