Although prominent members of his own party have recently called for immigration bans based on religion, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Democrats of “fear mongering” ahead of a vote on a bill that would impede the President’s plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees.
McConnell urged lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon to vote for the delay and the additional layers of oversight, and especially implored “colleagues across the aisle to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves.”
“This debate should be driven by facts and common sense, not fear mongering about targeting widows and orphans, or other straw men arguments that the White House has made from time-to-time,” McConnell added.
Calls to pause the refugee program gained momentum in Congress immediately after militants inspired by the Islamic State (ISIL) carried out deadly massacres in Paris on Nov. 13, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds of others.
The revelation that only French and Belgian citizens were identified as attackers does not appear to have had much of an impact on the anti-refugee initiative; neither does the lack of an overland route between Syria and Iraq and the United States.
President Obama made the statement cited by McConnell just four days after the attacks, promising to use his executive power to stop additional legislative constraints on the refugee program. He said that Syrian refugees go through the “most rigorous process conceivable” before being admitted into the United States.
“We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic,” he said. “We don’t make good decisions if it’s based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks.”
The Hill said Obama “apparently” directed the remark at presidential hopeful and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R). The governor had said he was against allowing even Syrian “orphans under five” into the US.
As The Washington Post pointed out in November, the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees “prioritize[s] refugees who are considered vulnerable” including women with children, the elderly and the infirm. The supranational body refers possible refugee candidates from Syria to the US.
The paper also pointed out that under the current program it takes the federal government between 18 and 24 months to vet Syrian refugees before they are allowed to resettle in the US. The first of the 10,000 Syrian refugees that President Obama wants to start admitting this fiscal year, therefore, would probably not even be admitted to the US until 2017 at the very earliest.
In addition to Christie, other Republican presidential candidates have also called for collective punishment to be meted out in response to the Paris attacks. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the US should only accept Syrian Christians. And in the wake of a Dec. 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. perpetrated by an American and his Pakistani-born wife, billionaire heir and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump called on all Muslims, including American citizens, to be temporarily banned from entering the United States.
He is still the frontrunner, as of publication, and would likely get McConnell’s vote, if he wins the nomination.
“I’m certainly going to support the Republican nominee for president,” McConnell said on Dec. 8, according to The Huffington Post, “minutes after calling Trump’s remarks ‘completely and totally inconsistent with American values.’”
A version of the bill to be considered by the Senate on Wednesday passed the House of Representatives in November by a veto-proof majority. McConnell noted the bill’s margin of passage on Tuesday, when issuing his rebuke of Democrats’ “fear mongering.”
