President Obama’s decision to allow about 10,000 Syrian refugees into the United States over the next year has given congressional Republicans, and some members of his administration, pause. They fear that terrorists will take advantage of the policy to enter the United States.
Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged that “he’s worried about” the terrorist threat during a congressional briefing Wednesday on the administration’s plan to accept more Syrian refugees into the United States, according to Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.). “The State Department indicated to me that we’re not really able to vet Middle Eastern applicants now, and if we increase that number that we’ll be even less able to do so,” Sessions tells National Review. “You can’t do an FBI background check [on such applicants]. They don’t have that kind of technology.”
Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) registered a similar concern after the Wednesday briefing. “The administration indicated that they were considering opening the floodgates and using emergency authority to go above what they proposed to Congress in today’s consultation,” he said in a statement. “Before agreeing to accept tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, the Obama administration must prove to the American people that it will take the necessary precautions to ensure that national security is a top priority, especially at a time when ruthless terrorist groups like ISIS are committed to finding ways to enter the United States and harm Americans.”
#share#Both senators allowed that the United States has “a humanitarian responsibility,” as Sessions put it. But the Alabama lawmaker suggested that fulfilling that responsibility doesn’t require bringing people to the United States, any more than it did when Central American children began arriving at America’s southern border last summer. “I didn’t see Europe absorbing Guatemalans,” Sessions says. “Our policy should be to keep the refugees as close to home as possible and then we need to be working to try to create the kind of stability [so] they could return to their home as soon as possible.”
He suggested using the money that would be spent on welfare benefits for the refugees who come to the United States to support Syrians in the region. “For the cost of one in the United States, we could probably provide maintenance assistance to 10, maybe more, in their home country or near there home country,” Sessions says.
— Joel Gehrke is a political reporter for National Review.