Massachusetts congressman convenes meeting of Syrian refugees, police
By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. governors' calls to stem the flow of Syrian refugees into the country may not improve security and has chilled the atmosphere for such immigrants, a Massachusetts congressmen and activists said after a Tuesday roundtable with law enforcement. U.S. Representative Seth Moulton, a first-term Democrat, called the meeting in response to statements by more than 25 governors including Massachusetts' Charlie Baker, a Republican, that the United States should halt or slow its acceptance of refugees fleeing Syria's civil war. Calls have mounted to bar the refugees after about 130 people died in attacks in Paris for which militants with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, have claimed responsibility. Opponents of the Obama administration's plan to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next year are concerned that the proposed vetting process is not stringent enough. They fear it could allow extremists planning attacks into the country. Reviews of refugees can take up to two years, according to officials. "When you think about the threats that we face from ISIS and other terrorist organizations around the world, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense that they would chose literally the most difficult way to get into the United States," said Moulton. The congressman served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq in 2003 through 2008 and later hosted an Iraqi translator in his home as the man applied for asylum. "ISIS is a sophisticated enemy," he said. "We've got to be smart about that strategy. We've got to be sure we address where the threat really is." Massachusetts took in 70 Syrian refugees, or 4 percent of the U.S. total, in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to State Department data. The heads of several New England groups that work with Syrian refugees said that calls for tighter controls on refugees, as well as a suggestion by Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump that the officials needed to monitor mosques and set up a registry of refugees, has left some feeling unwelcome in their new country. "The whole sentiment, the atmosphere has changed 10 days ago," said Nada Alawa, a Syrian immigrant who founded a nonprofit called NuDay that works with refugees resettling in the United States. "It came from the leadership, the message that was sent out right after the Paris attacks .... was that we should fear those Syrian refugees, we should fear those Muslims." The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday sued Indiana Governor Mike Pence over his refusal to allow refugees fleeing the nearly 5-year-old civil war to resettle in his state. Separately, Sandy Khabbazeh, 26, a refugee who fled Aleppo in September 2014 and now lives in Oakland, New Jersey, described the current U.S. vetting process for refugees as extensive. "When I got here, I went through a long and painful process," Khabbazeh said in an interview on Tuesday. "When they take a person, they will check like 100 times before they take them. It's not an easy process to come to the United States." (Reporting by Scott Malone; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Bill Trott and Christian Plumb)
