National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes says the Obama administration is still planning on allowing Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. despite Friday’s terrorist attack in Paris where at least one of the attackers had a Syrian passport.
“One of the attackers in the French slaughter was carrying a Syrian passport that seemed to indicate that he had been a refugee that had come into Europe along with the flood of migrants in October,” Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace said to Rhodes. “Given that, is President Obama reconsidering the plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year?” (RELATED: Paris Attacker Was A Syrian ‘Refugee’)
“No, Chris, we’re still planning to take in Syrian refugees,” Rhodes responded, adding, “we have very robust vetting procedures for those refugees.” (RELATED: Congress Learned Of Syrian Refugees Entering The U.S. Just Recently)
“It involves our intelligence community, our national counter-terrorism center, extensive interviews, vetting them against all information,” he said, “and what we need to be able to do frankly is sort out that foreign fighter flow — those who have gone into Syria and come out and want to launch attacks or those who have connections with ISIL in Syria.” (RELATED: Rep. King: Obama Admin. Wrong, ‘Robust Vetting Of Refugees Is Untrue’)
“We need to be able to have the intelligence base to identify and target those people. At the same time we have to recognize they’re tragic victims of this conflict, they’re women, children, orphans of this war, and I think we need to do our part along with our allies to provide them a safe haven. ” (RELATED: Obama Admin: ISIS Is Still Contained In Iraq And Syria, But They Have Now Gone Other Places Too [VIDEO])
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