Three Out Democrats Helped GOP House Pass Syrian Refugee Limits

“In short, the security vetting for this population – the most vulnerable of individuals – is extraordinarily thorough and comprehensive”, Secretary of State John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson write in letters sent to all state and territorial governors and to the mayor of Washington, D.C. The governors were reacting to a belief that one of the terrorist attackers in Paris traveled to Europe with a group of Syrian refugees.

On the night of the Paris assault, ultra-conservative Republican White House hopeful Senator Ted Cruz started calling for closing America’s doors to Syrian refugees in order to prevent any infiltration by Islamic State extremists.

A Syrian-American woman who survived the Paris terror attacks has defended refugees, after the US House of Representatives passed a bill to pause a program allowing Syrian refugees into the country.

Opponents of the bill said there already is a vigorous 18-month to 24-month vetting process for refugees.

According to recent statistics compiled by the United Nations, there are more than 4.2 million registered Syrian refugees.

Only two days passed between when lawmakers started writing the bill from when the bill was approved on the House floor.

Defenders of the bill, including some Democrats, described the changes as fairly modest, especially in light of rhetoric coming from some Republican presidential contenders such as Donald Trump suggesting keeping out all refugees. The Homeland Security secretary would subsequently have to certify, with the concurrence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation director and the director of national intelligence, that the refugee posed no security concerns. “They are working so hard to make a new life for themselves and we could not ask for kinder, more compassionate people to join our community”.

“They’re not treated differently than other refugees”.

Forty-seven of Mr Obama’s 188 fellow Democrats backed the bill, breaking with the White House to support it. “The world is united in our resolve to end their evil”, Biden said, replacing US President Barack Obama in his weekly radio and web address to the nation.

Some legal experts contend states can’t bar entry of the refugees, but the Republican bill would ensure that fewer make it past the screening.

Christie said that he is concerned about “the widows and orphans of September 11” in New Jersey and does not want another generation of them created by terrorist attacks.

The White House has proposed admitting at least 10,000 refugees from Syria next year. Syrians undergo additional screening involving data from the U.N. Refugee Agency and interviews by Homeland Security Department officials trained to question Syrians. “And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing that will show up because we have no record of them”.