Donovan Joins GOP’s Effort To Block Syrian Refugees From Entering U.S.

In the wake of last week’s terror attacks in Paris, Congressman Dan Donovan is joining his fellow GOP members in backing a bill to temporarily halt the Obama administration’s plan to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States until security protocols are reviewed.

At least 129 were killed in seven coordinated attacks across the French capital on Friday, November 13, and a Syrian passport was found near one of the attackers who died in a suicide blast, prompting House Republicans to push for tightened security measures before refugees from the Middle Eastern country are admitted.

“The world changed on November 13,” said Donovan in a statement Tuesday. “We must not be naïve about the risk of radical Islamic terror in the United States. American security must be our top priority. I ask that the Speaker bring this legislation to the floor as expeditiously as possible. In light of the Paris attacks, there can be no further delay.”

The bill, called Refugee Resettlement Oversight and Security Act, would require approval by the House and Senate before any refugees are admitted to the United States and permit Congress. It would also require the Administration, when considering the admission of refugees from Iraq and Syria, to prioritize the resettlement of oppressed religious minorities. Lastly, it instructs the Government Accountability Office to conduct a sweeping review of security gaps in the current refugee screening process. The House is expected to vote on a bill sometime this week.

“America has always been a compassionate nation, but our country’s security comes first. The solution to the refugee crisis lies in ridding the world of ISIS and its followers – no refugee program will solve that,” said Donovan.

The Obama administration is also facing pushback on the 10,000 refugee plan from a state level. On Tuesday, more than half of governors in the United States — including one Democrat — said they would prevent Syrian refugees from settling in their states if the president moves forward with the plan. Legal experts told CBS that governors don’t legally have the power to block the refugees from arriving, but they could obstruct the resettlement process.

President Barack Obama has said that he will not change his stance on the refugees, and at the G20 Summit in Turkey with world leaders Monday, he called out GOP politicians for fear mongering and suggesting that the administration should prioritize refugees of one religion over another.

“When I hear folks say that maybe we should just admit the Christians and not the Muslims (refugees), when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful. That’s not American. That’s not who we are,” said the president.

The vetting process for refugees in the United States is already quite extensive. According to this CNN report, it begins with United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) — the international body that assists refugee– which decides who is a “refugee” based on the criteria decided at the 1951 Refugee Convention. Specifically, a refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”

If the person is determined to meet the requirements and referred to the United States, the application is processed by a federally funded Resettlement Support Center, which administers a health screening, conducts a background checks, and makes sure the refugee does not pose a threat to the country — a process which can 18 months or longer. The process includes several federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Syrian refugees go through an additional screening called Syria Enhanced Review process, according to officials.

“With the Syrian program, we’ve benefited from our years of experience in vetting Iraqi refugee applicants,” a senior administration official told reporters. “And so the partnerships we have today and the security checks we have today really are more robust because of the experience that we’ve had since the beginning of large-scale Iraqi processing in 2007.”

It is estimated that more than 6.5 million people had been displaced within Syria since the beginning of the conflict, and that more than 3 million refugees had fled to countries like Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. Only 1,500 Syrians have been resettled in the United States.