As Republicans call for blocking Syrian refugees from going to the US in the wake of the attacks in Paris, the administration of US President Barack Obama on Tuesday said it was confident that it could weed out any refugees posing a terrorism threat before they entered the country.
The administration’s plan to allow about 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US next year has become a highly charged political issue, pitting concerns about national security against efforts to help people fleeing a brutal civil war.
One of the Paris attackers is reported to have gotten to France from Syria by posing as a refugee, and some say they are worried that letting in thousands of Syrian refugees would make the US vulnerable to a similar strike.
However, the administration said that it had no intention of backing away from the refugee plan. In a series of tense exchanges with Republicans at a US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said a “significant and robust” vetting process for the refugees would identify any security threats.
That process will include not only searches of domestic and foreign intelligence databases for information on possible terrorist threats, but also interviews with all applicants, as well as fingerprinting and biometric testing, Lynch said.
The White House said the refugees would be “subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States.”
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other top administration officials also held a 90-minute conference call with 34 governors to answer questions and to try to ease concerns about the refugee plan. Some governors have been threatening to try to block Syrian refugees from entering their states, but the White House sought to assure them that rigorous checks were in place to guard against security risks.
Lynch acknowledged that the influx of refugees from a war-torn region “certainly does present challenges” in ensuring security, but she said the US was in a much better position than its European counterparts to identify threats among refugees.
Her assurances did little to mollify Republicans on the committee, who attacked the refugee plan as a sign of the Obama administration’s insufficient concern about national security.
“I’m very troubled by the confidence you seem to exude here and the president exudes,” Iowa Representative Steve King told the attorney general.
Several Republicans challenged Lynch by pointing to testimony last month before the House Homeland Security Committee by FBI director James Comey, who sounded far less confident about the government’s ability to weed out refugees who pose terrorism threats.
More than two dozen Republican governors are vowing to try to block the entry of Syrian refugees into the US, while all the Republican presidential candidates have called for blocking or limiting refugees from Syria.
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