Harry Reid vows to block bill to add stricter refugee vetting

I hope every single one of those 47 Democrats who voted with Republicans on the anti-refugee bill, are voted out of office. Dozens of House Democrats evidently weren’t too keen on voting against a bill that would make it harder for ISIS terrorists to enter the United States posing as refugees. However quite a lot of Democrats peeled off anyway, under vital pressure from constituents to act after terrorist assaults in Paris last week.

The measure, which requires tighter screening for applicants from those countries, passed by 289-137, a wide-enough margin to override a promised presidential veto.

“We need to increase accountability”, said a statement from Rep. Ryan Costello (R., Pa.). “The bill we would propose would strictly limit that”, she said after attending a classified briefing with senior administration officials Wednesday evening. “A few of us just don’t understand why you can’t verify that and you can’t do it fast”. And on the Senate side, a few in Obama’s party want a more muscular response to last Friday’s attacks in Paris.

Cross said those working-class voters helped propel Republicans such as U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Governor-elect Matt Bevin to victories in successive years.

The Obama administration said the House bill would “unacceptably hamper our efforts to assist a few of the most vulnerable people in the world”.

It may already be the end of the road for the bill. Senators are expected to leave town as soon as Thursday afternoon for a week and a half, and by the time they come back, the frantic push to block Syrian refugees may have eased.

House members who supported the bill “will be able to go home to their district over Thanksgiving, act as if they were tough”, said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a first-term Democrat whose district includes Philadelphia and Montgomery County.

Pelosi, speaking on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, said USA lawmakers should focus on closing gun purchasing and visa waiver loopholes rather than targeting people from certain countries.

McConnell also teed up a bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Thursday will introduce legislation broadening the debate to visa waivers granted to European citizens traveling to the United States. Most of the Paris attackers, including theBelgian national who allegedly planned them, were citizens of visa waiver countries.

Other senators are pushing measures that do target refugee resettlement – including one from GOP presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Two senators running for the Republican nomination, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, each attempted procedural moves to force votes on their own ideas for getting tougher with refugees. Again, this isn’t an imaginary threat, neither here nor in Europe – Reid’s breezy “the problem is not with refugees” assessment notwithstanding.

Twenty-eight percent say Obama should go ahead with his plan to resettle 10,000 Syrians seeking asylum, according to the survey.

He said the rhetoric coming from Republicans – and a few Democrats – would only hurt the country’s security.

Laura Barron-Lopez and Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.