Obama threatens veto on new refugee requirements
The White House is warning Congressional Republicans the President would veto a bill calling for additional background checks on Syrian refugees. That bill was introduced this week following the attacks in Paris. The administration said there are already stringent background checks and more would just cause unnecessary delays.
There’s already a rigorous screening process, but David Inserra at the Heritage Foundation said that’s not really the issue.
“I think what the concern is that Congress doesn’t trust that the administration is doing it properly,” he said. “I haven’t seen any intelligence or information to prove that there actually are holes in the vetting process.” But, according to Inserra, we don’t know enough to be sure.
“A lot of the security process, the screening process, the vetting process, is based on intelligence that we have and are largely behind closed doors,” he said. “We don’t want people to know exactly how we vet people because then you can game the system.”
Congress now wants that information. Some members introduced legislation this week that would increase reporting requirements. Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said this isn’t a good way to handle reforms to the refugee program.
“Those should really be done in the context of looking at broad, comprehensive reforms to immigration,” Chen said of the reforms. “Because the system is so complex that it shouldn’t be done on a piecemeal basis.”
But Republicans are warning the refugee issue could be a sticking point in the budget deal. The deadline to finalize that is December 11.
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