Congressman Vern Buchanan sent a letter to President Obama Thursday in which he urged the White House to immediately stop admitting Syrian refugees into the country.
The Florida Republican cited FBI Director Comey’s recent warning that current victories against the ISIS caliphate within Syria will lead to “a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before.”
He also pointed to a “clear pattern in which a number of recent attacks have been carried out by ISIS terrorists with ties to Syria” across Europe.
President Barack Obama addresses the Presidential Summit of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders at the Omni Shoreham Hotel (Getty Images)
“In the context of this clear threat, your goal of admitting 10,000 Syrians as a part of a so-called ‘surge operation’ is extremely troubling,” Buchanan wrote. “Particularly given that White House press secretary Josh Earnest recently admitted that the screening process ‘typically takes 12 to 18 months….the reason for that process is that the safety and security of the U.S. homeland comes first.'”
The letter — which can be read in its entirety below — also urged Obama “to work with world leaders to create a safe zone for refugees inside Syria or in a neighboring country. According to data from the Center for Immigration Studies, the U.S. could support the resettlement of 12 refugees in the Middle East for the cost of caring for one refugee in the U.S.”
Finally, he noted that “terrorists are leaving Syria disguised as refugees and carrying out attacks in the West.”
“The prudent course of action is to halt all admissions of Syrians into the U.S. until the safety of Americans can be guaranteed.”
Buchanan Letter to President Aug 4 2016 by Christian Datoc on Scribd