(Video above: Sen. Jeff Sessions speaks on the Senate floor regarding the Obama administration’s Syrian refugee policy. The full speech can be viewed here.)
During a speech on the Senate floor Friday, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said the Obama administration is willfully concealing the immigration history of convicted terrorists.
Sessions’ remarks were made in the context of discussing the president’s policy on Syrian refugees, which the Alabama senator says amount to Mr. Obama asking congress for a “blank check” for refugee resettlement.
“The President persists in this plan even though his own officials, testifying before my [Immigration] Subcommittee, conceded there is no database in Syria with which to vet refugees,” Sessions began. “Moreover, as his officials concluded, there is no way to prevent refugees from radicalizing after their entrance to the U.S, just as has happened with Somali refugees…
“Senator Cruz and I sent the Administration a list of 72 individuals charged or convicted of terrorism in just the last year. We asked for the immigration histories of each individual. Stunningly, the Administration refused to respond.
“It would be unthinkable for Congress to acquiesce to the President’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration history of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are involved with ISIS.”
The current government funding proposal before congress would not only authorize President Obama’s plan to bring in 85,000 refugees on top of the current, historical annual immigration flow, but would also allow for an unlimited amount of money to be spent on lifetime welfare and benefits for refugees.
One hundred percent of the costs of providing refugees with food stamps, housing, and cash welfare would be borrowed and added to the national debt, according to Sessions’ office, while all of the expense for providing refugees with Medicare and Social Security would be accomplished by drawing down the Trust Funds.
“Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, estimates the net cost of resettling 10,000 refugees averages out to $6.5 billion over the lifespan of those refugees,” said Sessions. “With such a forecast, the President’s proposal to resettle 85,000 refugees this fiscal year alone will result in a net cost of approximately $55.25 billion.”
Sessions concluded that it would be unreasonable to expect the American people to support the president’s Syrian refugee policy in light of the national security threat it could pose.
“We’ve seen a number of refugees implicated in terrorist activities inside the United States,” he said. “We wish it weren’t so, but it’s a fact.”
MORE ABOUT THE SYRIAN REFUGEE DEBATE:
1. Shelby rips Obama over Syrian refugees: ‘We don’t need those people in this country’
2. Alabama’s lone Democrat joins Republicans, bucks Obama on Syrian refugee program
3. White House refuses Bentley’s request for classified info on Syrian refugees coming to Alabama
4. Byrne introduces bill to ‘eliminate all funding’ for Syrian refugee resettlement
5. More than 100 Syrian refugees could soon be in Mobile, given Medicaid and food stamps
6. Bentley to Obama: Evil exists, Alabama cannot risk accepting Syrian refugees
7. Shelby, Sessions tag-team Obama’s Syrian refugee program, move to revoke its funding
8. Bentley: Use ‘all lawful means necessary’ to keep Syrian refugees out of Alabama
9. Legal experts disagree on whether Alabama has a right to refuse Syrian refugees
10. Map shows Alabama has already received hundreds of Middle East refugees in recent years
11. Sessions moves to revoke funding for Syrian refugee resettlement
12. Condoleezza Rice sums up why allowing Syrian refugees into Alabama is a bad idea
