President Obama is pressing hard to resettle tens of thousands more Syrian refugees in the United States. Yet amid criticism from Republicans, his biggest enemy seems to be officials in his own administration.
Obama ratcheted up the pressure on other countries and the U.S. to take in more refugees at the United Nations refugee summit last week, arguing that the world has not faced such a massive refugee crisis since World War II.
The president and other White House officials insist the refugees can be thoroughly vetted to ensure they won’t pose a terrorism threat.
Republicans argue that defies common sense — that there is no way the administration can guarantee the Syrians aren’t radicalized already or wouldn’t develop into a home-grown threat once they are here.
Debate over Obama’s push for more Syrian refugee settlements in the U.S. flared after the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, which killed more than 120 people. One of the Paris attackers entered Europe in the wave of Syrian war refugees relocating to the continent.
Now, after news that the suspect accused of planting pressure-cooker bombs in New York and New Jersey is from Afghanistan and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen, the debate has intensified again.
“There is a clear and present danger posed to the nation’s security by these poorly vetted refugees that are pouring in,” Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner. “And the president continues to double down on his intentions to bring more of these individuals to the U.S. from these terrorist hotspots like Syria.”
Obama at the United Nations last week argued just the opposite, insisting that taking in millions more refugees will help the West win the battle for “hearts and minds” against terrorists groups like ISIS.
“We have to understand that ultimately our world will be more secure” if more countries around the world accommodate these refugees, Obama said.
Republicans, however, say some of Obama’s top national security officials have undermined his argument.
In September, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the Islamic State would likely try to infiltrate a U.S refugee program in order to plot and carry out attacks in the U.S.
“I don’t, obviously, put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees, so that’s a huge concern of ours,” Clapper said at the time, even though he said the U.S. government has a “pretty aggressive” screening program.
FBI Director James Comey in testimony to Congress last year said U.S. vetting systems have “improved dramatically,” but noted that “a number of people who were of serious concern” managed to slip through the screening of Iraq War refugees, including two who were later arrested on terrorism-related charges.
Syrian refugees, he said, will be much harder to vet than those fleeing Iraq because U.S. troops have not been on the ground in the country interacting and gathering data on the local population.
“If we don’t know much about somebody, there won’t be anything in our data,” Comey said. “I can’t sit here and offer anybody an absolute assurance that there’s no risk associated with this.”
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power pointed out that the U.S. has admitted 3.2 million refugees since the 1970s and says the country is “more than capable of doing that and ensuring our own security.”
The vetting process begins with a referral from the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, the agency responsible for registering all refugees, providing in-depth interviews of them, “home-country” reference checks and biological screening using iris scans in an attempt to weed out militants or extremists.
Once those refugees pass the U.N. background checks, the agency refers a fraction for overseas resettlement based on need and vulnerability. For example, victims of sexual violence, political persecution, those with severe medical needs, families with multiple children or female heads of household are given first priority.
In early August, the State Department told reporters that 78 percent of the 8,000 Syrian refugees admitted to the country by that time were women and children with more than half under the age of 18. Of those children, roughly half are male and half are female.
The Obama administration has since met its goal of taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees by Oct. 1, increasing the goal for next year’s admission to 110,000.
Once the refugees are referred to the U.S., they go through a process in which nine federal agencies review their files. Among the agencies involved are the State Department, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.
As part of the screening process, a DHS official conducts in-person interviews and collects biometric information such as fingerprints that are matched against past visa applications.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, an agency within the DHS, has not provided updated information about the percentage of applicants who pass and fail the screening tests. However, in early August, the agency said 80 percent of Syrian refugee applicants for travel to the United States between 2011 and July 2016 were approved.
Another 7 percent had their cases denied while the balance remains on hold, pending further analysis before they are approved or denied.
The debate over vetting Syrian refugees likely will continue as long as the exodus from the war-torn country goes on. Syrian activists argue that stopping Syrian President Bashar Assad from bombing the civilian population is the only way to stem the refugee tide.
“Syria will empty by 2039 at the current rate of the exodus — 2,000 people a day,” an activist told the Examiner. “The only answer is to help people stay in their homes and to return to their homes.
“The only way to do that is to stop Assad and give him some consequences for what he is doing or set up a no-fly zone to protect civilians — something the Obama administration has shown no interest in doing,” he said.
