The fallout from the Paris terrorist attacks will begin to play out on the House floor Thursday as the chamber is set to approve a bill to block any refugees from Syria or Iraq from entering the country unless they pass a strict background check and receive government certification.
The bill, which was crafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), is expected to pass with a big bipartisan margin. A sizable number of Democrats are likely to cross the aisle and vote for it, despite White House opposition, said lawmakers in both parties. Some rank-and-file Democrats are concerned about looking soft on national security even as French authorities continue to track down suspects from last week’s deadly attacks.
Democratic insiders predicted that anywhere between 40 to 60 Democrats could vote “yes” on the bill, though estimates are very fluid and the final tally could be far higher unless the White House can move some votes. The Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, which has 15 members, announced that it would support the bill.
Some Democrats privately griped that the Obama administration has been too slow in responding to the GOP proposal. A senior Democrat complained that there is “frustration that the White House is not giving them a good enough reason” to oppose the measure.
Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, will brief House Democrats Thursday morning on the White House’s objections to the Syria bill. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough will also attend the session, part of the last-minute lobbying blitz by top administration officials to derail the GOP proposal.
I find it strange that this bill can make the House floor in a week. We have been waiting for a comprehensive Immigration bill for years. I suppose its a matter of priorities.
I find the speed at which things are moving to be frightening and opportunistic. Where are the studies that look at the humanitarian side of this issue? How can we offer relief to a displaced people without placing Americans at unnecessary risk? Apparently that question won’t be a part of the discussion.
Shame on us.
I am so tired of hearing ridiculous, scaredy-cat voices all having southern accents.
@Moon-howler
Chuck Schumer is also on record for “pausing” the refugee fiasco.
There you go…one northern accent.
When Cruz and Schumer agree on something, I think its time to see what they have to say.
I was listening to the House debate, or lack thereof.
As for those two agreeing….now that’s a scary thought.
Just sitting here thinking about the St. Louis.
The perpetrators of Friday’s terror attacks who have thus far been identified were French nationals who, because of that, would have been eligible to enter the United States with only minimal prior screening.
”The problem is the European communities, which are generally all visa waiver communities,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Wednesday after exiting a closed-door briefing with homeland security officials. “Let’s say France has had 2,000 people leave to go and fight. They are visa waiver countries, so the people come back to France and then they [can] come into the United States. The bill we would propose would strictly limit that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/11/19/house-moves-to-tighten-flow-of-syrian-refugees-over-obamas-objections/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-high_house-refugees-2pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
So the French terrorists, had they simply applied for US visas, would’ve gotten them fairly easily. But the republicans in the house would rather focus on keeping out Syrian women and children. That’s just stupid. Fix the problem with visas.
It sounds to me like it is much tougher for widows and orphans to gain entry into the USA than it is for terrorists, based on the information you just shared, Starry.
@Starryflights
“But the republicans in the house would rather focus on keeping out Syrian women and children.”
Funny…the UN puts the lie to both you and the President. The UN states that 72% of the refugees arriving as refugees across the world are MEN.
Try again.
72% of what refugees are men? I saw those Syrian refugees entering Europe. I didn’t see that many men.
How is the UN defining “refugee?”
@Moon-howler
Starry is a Minabird, repeating what he hears from those who tend his cage. When presented with facts contrary to his assertions, he cocks his head, and again chirps that which he’s been conditioned to repeat.
Stop it. He doesn’t deserve to be insulted. Disagree with his points.
I listened a long time to various experts this afternoon. they made a lot more sense than some of the hysterical congress-folk.
@Cargosquid
Cargo, maybe they don’t want to admit there are democrat governors and mayors who are opposing the terror…ur..refugee resettlement program as well. The mayor of Roanoke (D ) is opposed as well.
So this fact has destroyed one of my long-held beliefs: Democrats don’t care about our nation. Obviously there are a few who do.
There are plenty of Democrats who don’t want to allow refugees in. Some are going into the various Syrian communities as soon as tonight.
I think that they should have been talking about how to provide humanitarian relief to a beleaguered people. Some of you sound like all this is fake.
How about changing that title to something like: “American Counterterrorism Safety Enhancement Bill”?
Because what I heard on C-Span this morning was anti refugee. It sickened me.
Heard on C-Span from whom?
Hard to be insulted coming from the guy who said Syrian refugees carried out the Paris attacks using Playstations, haha!
Dear Starry: Repeat after me: ISIS, not Syrian refugees, carried out the Paris attacks. ISIS, not Syrian refugees, carried out the Paris attacks. Then, please go back to Steve’s Post #33 in the other thread and read that link about how ISIS actually uses things like PlayStation 4 to evade the counter-terrorist eavesdroppers. Thank you.
Oh, my. The State Department is warning Americans in Europe to avoid certain prominent places in Italy, especially the Vatican, because of possible ISIS targeting. Even for me that one about avoiding the Vatican is something new. Not even in the heyday of the Red Brigades do I recall such a thing. But I have just seen some photos of the Rome carbinieri searching people going into the Vatican, even Catholic nuns.
Mali just got it. I would also think the Vatican would also be vulnerable as any place else.
Lord Almighty, reports coming in that jihadist gunmen have taken over a major hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali in West Africa, and are holding about 170 people hostage. In that kind of hotel, very many of the hostages are probably Europeans (likely many French) and maybe Americans. France on the hot seat again. I doubt if the Malian armed forces will be able to handle this alone. Look for the quick arrival of the Foreign Legion in Bamako.
@Starry flights
A misquoting minabird. I posted links to two news reports describing the various ways terrorists communicate. One of the many ways is using Playstation game consoles. You do realize these modern consoles are capable of much more than playing video games, right? They are networked to allow multiplayer participation. They can be used for video conferencing, similar to skype. You can stream netflix through these things. They are just computers with hopped up graphics cards.
But you keep incorrectly trying to imply that we are claiming the Paris attacks were carried out by Syrian refugees using Playstations. This just further demonstrates your ignorance.
An excellent point, my good man! We would all do well to remember such a simple fact. Excellent point!
And btw, the app that Isis uses is called Telegram. A Russian developed it to hide from Putin’s secret spies. It’s similar to WhatsAp but it allows users to encrypt messages. That’s the one that has law enforcement and intelligence services on edge.
@Moon-howler
Those entering Europe from the ME and claiming refugee status.
Multiply this by 10,000.
Constitutional rights?
I wish the DHS would treat Americans with that much respect.
http://thehayride.com/2015/11/exclusive-dept-of-homeland-security-does-not-know-where-missing-syrian-refugee-is-that-left-louisiana/
“A Syrian refugee that had shortly resettled in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is apparently not being monitored by the Department of Homeland Security, as state officials had originally assumed.
Earlier in the week, the Hayride reported on a “missing” Syrian refugee that had apparently left the Baton Rouge area. Then, the Louisiana State Police confirmed that the refugee was headed to Washington DC to resettle with family in the country’s capitol.
Once in Washington DC, the refugee was apparently supposed to “check in” with authorities there, according to state officials.
However, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has been on top of the issue ever since, said he spoke with the Department of Homeland Security today and they confirmed to him that they do not, in fact, know where the refugee is.
Homeland Security say they have no information on where the Syrian refugee is. Also, they said the refugee could not be “kept up with” because of his constitutional rights, according to a spokesman for Vitter.
Vitter, who has been an adamant opponent of bringing Syrian refugees into the country and specifically the state, said this specific case comes down to political correctness.”
Do all refugees have to “check in”?
@Wolve
Its still going on.
France is the target again.
I just heard something, and researched to verify: Obama halted the Iraqi refugee resettlement program for a time in 2011…After Iraqi terror suspects were arrested in KY, who had entered the US as REFUGEES!
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/18/the-obama-administration-stopped-processing-iraq-refugee-requests-for-6-months-in-2011/
You just don’t get anything, do you, fella?
The hotel massacre in Bamako. Al-Mourabitoun, sometime jihadist ally of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Perpetrators of that bloody attack against a refinery in the Algerian desert. Despoilers of Tombuktoo and Gao until the French armed forces helped the Malians to drive them deep into the Sahara.
We haven’t heard from or paid much attention to them of late. It’s been ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Levant and ISIS and al-Qaeda in the Levant and once in awhile the Taliban. And now they come back, led by one-eyed Mokhtar Belmokhtar a.k.a “Lazarus” because he seems to come back from the dead. What did I say above about “zombies” in the counter-terrorist business?
Dangerous stuff here. Visiting diplomats and USAID development personnel, prominent cultural and educational exchange personalities, foreign businessmen, and air crews, inter alia, patronize hotels like this in the West African cities.
He’s scrambling now.
@Wolve
I think Starry is trying to recover from learning that Obama halted the Iraqi refugee program for the same reasons Obama now calls “Un-American”. His Chi is all screwed up by this inconvenient truth.
@Steve Thomas Just noticed you put the same “Obama stopped refugees for 6 months” item over here on this thread. Is that the best you have to try to shut up liberals? That Obama did something stupid, that you happen to agree with, so that makes him some kind of totally incompetent loser in my eyes? Let it go. Even Obama makes mistakes, I hear he is human.
You mean, Watching, that, if you discovered that two genuine terrorist perps with known rap sheets had made it through your refugee vetting process and were actually acquiring weapons to send back to their compatriots in the terrorist group, you would keep the faulty vetting program going without a halt to examine the failure in depth and resolve the problems in order to keep other bad guys out?
Whoa, fella, you are sitting way out there on the end of a tree branch. One of those “victims-in-waiting” I referred to elsewhere, I would say.
I still find it inconsistent that the same degree of alarm isn’t shown over domestic terrorism.
I am one of those strange ducks who think that spree killing is domestic terrorism.
Do we stop, look at what has gone wrong, and make the necessary adjustments? Rarely.
Just an observation. I am not in this debate.
Wolve,
Obviously your outrage is too focused (if you are indeed “outraged” by this). You need to be “outraged” that Undoogo has to drink from a ditch in Botswana. You need to be “outraged” that a basket of muslim kittens was thrown by a racist republican into a river. You need to be “outraged” at the decline of the northern plains grouse. You need to be “outraged” because two opposing groups of people all members of a certain community, showed up to a child’s playground to film a rap video, and the production ended in “gun violence”, because guns were invented in the 14th century. But being “outraged” at the prospects of you and your family literally losing their heads, because our federal government insists that it can “vet” a person against the Syrian government’s records? You are just a “knee-jerk” reactionary racist. Nevermind that the Syrian government has pretty much ceased to function. Never mind it took a reporter less than 4 hours to buy a fake Syrian passport. Never mind that we are now catching Middle Eastern men of military age in Latin America and on our Southern border, with fake Syrian and Greek passports. Nope…you are just a XenoIslamophobic racist…and you hate kittens.
What I find so troubling is that people always come up with many reasons to not let people in. I don’t care if its the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, or whatever. Then we all get on our moral high horse and condemn those people, then turn around and do the same thing ourselves.
As if things weren’t bad enough, it seems we are once again chasing Hispanics and going ballistic over local illegal immigration. I am trying to sort it all out. I find myself dealing with the same problem as the last go round..weasel words.
🙄
I think we need to figure out a way to help refugees. The world is a dangerous place. Every person cannot be vetted. How do we vet those people who are here?
How do we keep idiots from hopping aboard a plane from some country that doesn’t require a visa?
I will let someone else figure it out. I just think we always have to keep our eye on doing for others without being chumps. That is a mighty fine line.
No..I am “outraged” by this. Your lack of understanding is a micro-aggression. I am going to NOVA to protest. You need to check your privilege. I am “outraged” that you are trying to silence me. I will now strike, until Moon resigns.
Hitler was human. Stalin was human. Mao was human. Pol Pot was human. Kim Jung Il was human. Saddam Hussein was human. What in your vapid world is the point? I educated you on some facts, and you still don’t get it. There are people who want to cut your western woman head off. That is their stated objective. Me? All I have to do is pay the tax, say the pledge, grow my beard, and agree to beat my wife if she gets out of line. What will you do?
Here’s my compassion: I promise not to get angry with you, when you ask to hide behind “humans” like me, when “humans” who you want to let into this country. come to cut your head off. Obama would call this a case of “workplace violence” or a “setback”. I would not.
In the Bible, a “fool” is defined as “one lacking in sense”. I think the application of this definition is quite appropriate in your case.