Rauner Rejects White House Compromise On Syrian Refugees

USA advocates for Syrian refugees are intensifying a campaign to boost public support for resettling them in the United States, as opinion polls suggest more than half of US citizens oppose the resettlement program.

Ann Corcoran, the watchdog author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, called the Obama administration’s “new” data program “laughable” because there is nothing new about it.

The White House promised the nation’s governors Monday that it will provide them better information on Syrian refugees being resettled in their states, but said its policy on accepting those refugees remains unchanged.

Representatives from the IRC are willing to meet with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, according to the statement.

The IRC said it has yet to receive a response to its meeting invitation from Abbott, who is now in Havana, Cuba on a business development mission through Wednesday.

The White House is proposing a new process to give governors more information on refugees in their state.

“Given the current climate around the globe”, the conservative leaders write, “a refugee population so large, fleeing a war-torn region, with ample evidence that a group of Syrian refugees is much more likely to contain Islamic Extremists bent on violence in America creating a completely unsecure, dangerous, and untenable situation for the American people”. Any refugees who are now being reunified to sponsoring families already residing in North Dakota are coming from Somalia, Iraq, Nepal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she said. “While no state law has banned the refugees, the governor of this state has said “no” for security reasons”, said Terri Hall, president of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom.

Meanwhile, also on November 25, federal officials from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, sent a letter from its Washington headquarters to resettlement groups in Texas. “If you remain unwilling to cooperate with the state on this matter, we strongly believe that a failure to cooperate with the State on this matter violates federal law and your contract with the state”.

Governors do, however, have some control over the purse strings that make refugee resettlement possible. “Texas and other states don’t have veto power in this area”. And some opponents of President Barack Obama’s effort to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in this country view the must-pass funding measure as the ideal vehicle to thwart the administration’s plan.

“Your agency insists on resettling certain refugees from Syria in the near future”. The process takes around two years and has been effective thus far. Dalrymple said he wanted to wait until more strict screening processes were in place following the Paris terrorist attacks that included Syrian immigrants. Of those, three have been arrested for planning terrorist activities. Federal courts – including the U.S. Supreme Court – have said immigration and admission of noncitizens to the United States is a federal responsibility and one managed wholly by the federal government.