Of Course: Despite Paris Attack Obama Has No Plans to Re-Evaluate Syrian Refugee Policy

Katie Pavlich | November 16, 2015 7:55 AM

Over the weekend we learned that at least one of the ISIS terrorists who carried out the worst terror attack in France since World War II came into Europe by posing as a Syrian refugee. Despite this fact, President Obama has no plans to re-evaluate his calls to increase the number of Syrian refugees the United States accepts.

“We’re still planning on taking in Syrian refugees,” White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We had very robust vetting procedures for those refugees.”

As a reminder of Obama administration policy on this issue:

In an announcement made Thursday afternoon, the White House confirmed plans to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States. There is no word yet on what the vetting process will be for refugees or how the White House plans to assure Americans the process will prevent ISIS terrorists from making their way into the United States.

"The United States, at the direction of the United States, has played a leading role in addressing the dire humanitarian crisis in the Middle East and North Africa," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Thursday during the daily briefing. "One thing that the United States can do is to begin to let more Syrian refugees into the United States. This year, this fiscal year that will end this month, the United States is on track to take in about 1500 Syrian refugees. The president has directed his team to scale up that number next year and he's informed his team he would like them to accept, at least make preparations, for 10,000 refugees."

Officials at the FBI and Homeland Security have repeatedly warned that there is no infrastructure in place to properly vet refugees coming into the country, making the United States a prime target for ISIS terrorists claiming asylum.

“We’re a compassionate nation and this is a tragic situation but I also have to be concerned as Chairman of Homeland Security about the safety of Americans in this country and the concern that I have and that the FBI testified to is that we don’t really have the proper databases on these individuals to vet them passed and to assure we’re not allowing terrorists to come into this country and until I have that assurance, I cannot support a program that could potentially bring jihadists into the United States,” House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul said a recent interview with Fox News. “We don’t know who these people are and I think that’s the bottom line here and until we know who they are, we cannot responsibly bring them into the United States.”

On Saturday, the first round of new Syrian refugees arrived in New Orleans. ISIS has repeatedly said they will use the current refugee crisis to transfer trained fighter from Iraq and Syria to Western Europe and the United States to carry out attacks.