Tennessee Republican leader: Spherical up Syrian refugees

States have no authority to bar refugees from moving to their jurisdictions.

“We need to activate the Tennessee National Guard and stop them from coming in to the state by whatever means we can”, House Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada of the Nashville suburb of Franklin told The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/1HXp3HJ ) for Wednesday’s editions.

A leading Republican legislator is suggesting that the Tennessee National Guard be used to remove from the state what he refers to as “Islamists”.

“I’m not anxious about what a bureaucrat in D.C. or an unelected judge thinks”, Casada said.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam joined more than a dozen other governors in the US, stating Monday that he asked the federal government to keep Syrian Refugees out of the state, voicing concern about the country’s system of background checks for those seeking asylum in the U.S. “We do not need ISIS trained, Hamas trained, Al-Qaida trained terrorists in the State of Tennessee”. For the protection and the safety of Tennessee citizens we need to give those individuals back to the federal government.

The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition criticized the “dangerous rhetoric” from Casada.

Thirty of the 1,601 refugees who settled in the state during fiscal 2015 came from Syria, according to the Tennessee Office for Refugees.

Casada’s is by far the most extreme. She said “we understand completely the sense of helplessness, despair and dread after the terrorist attack on our own state in Chattanooga in July of this year”. Jeff Yarbro told the Tennessean. “But giving in to fear, closing the borders and abandoning our allies is un-American, and ultimately will make our situation even more risky”.