47 Democrats vote for it, despite Obama saying he would veto it.
By Raif Karerat
With the threat of a presidential veto looming over them, U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday to suspend Obama’s program to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year and then intensify the process of screening them, according to Reuters.
The vote was 289-137, with 47 Democrats joining 242 Republicans in favor of the bill, creating a majority that could even override President Barack Obama’s promised veto, reported CNN.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said the bill would pause the program the White House announced in September to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. He said it was important to act quickly “when our national security is at stake.”
The new measure would require high-level officials — the FBI director, the director of national intelligence and homeland security secretary — all verify that each Syrian refugee poses no security risk.
Following the House vote, Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch, called such screening both impractical and impossible.
“To ask me to have my FBI director or other members of the administration make personal guarantees would effectively grind the program to a halt,” Lynch told reporters at a news briefing with FBI Director James Comey.
Comey has expressed deep concerns about the bill, two U.S. officials informed CNN. He allegedly told administration and congressional officials that the legislation would make it impossible to allow any refugees into the U.S., and could even affect the ability of travelers from about three dozen countries that are allowed easier travel to the U.S. under the visa waiver program, the unnamed officials said.
During his trip abroad this week, Obama has offered a pronounced defense of the program and skewered Republican opponents for being scared of “widows and orphans.”
“We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic,” Obama said in the Philippines on Wednesday. “We don’t make good decisions if it’s based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.”