Obama Appeals On Thanksgiving To Welcome Syrian Refugees As Mayflower Pilgrims

He began his address saying that in 1620, a group of refugees came to America on the Mayflower to flee persecution and violence in their native land.

The president then stated: “What makes America America is that we offer that chance”.

The letter comes after more than two dozen governors, mostly Republicans, vowed to block efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in their states following the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris.

Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to suspend the refugee plan and intensify screening measures.

Thanksgiving Day in the USA is traced to a feast in 1621 by the Pilgrims in which they gave their appreciation to god for their first successful harvest in the New World. Furthermore, many Republicans cast serious doubt on whether refugees can be properly vetted to ensure that they are not terrorists.

Over 2,200 Syrian refugees have already been resettled into the USA since October of 2010, says the State Department. According to the International Refugee Assistance Project, those Iraqi translators are among the 58,000 or more Iraqis who worked with the U.S. They are still awaiting for visa processing.

The federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) said in a letter to state agencies on Wednesday that they can not withhold services to refugees based on their country of origin or religion.

Obama compared the Syrian refugees to the pilgrims that came to America on the Mayflower during an address to the nation on Thanksgiving.

One woman from Pennsylvania wrote to me to say, Money is tight for us in my household. The Senate has been considering the House bill and Obama has said its passage there would prompt him to try to use his veto.

The letter reassured states, as President Obama has been trying to do nearly daily, that refugees are subject to a thorough screening process before they enter the country.

They were among about 1,500 migrants who have been stranded near Greece’s northern border town of Idomeni after Europe chose to filter migrants, allowing only those fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to cross into the Balkans.

A Bloomberg poll from last week suggested that more than half, or 53 percent of Americans, share the same concerns and would oppose taking in more Syrian refugees. “We can do this, ‘” Obama said.

“Decisions concerning immigration and refugee resettlement are exclusively the province of the federal government, and attempts to pre-empt that authority violate both equal protection and civil rights laws and intrude on authority that is exclusively federal”, said ACLU of IN legal director Ken Falk IN a press release.

But does anybody care that most Syrian refugees don’t even want to move to the West?