State leaders: No more refugees

BOISE (AP) — Gov. Butch Otter is among a growing number of mainly Republican governors calling for the immediate halt of resettling new refugees until vetting rules can be reviewed and state concerns about the program can be addressed.

Otter’s announcement on Monday came three days after terrorists attacked multiple sites in Paris, killing 129 and wounding hundreds more.

Otter didn't threaten to stop accepting Syrian refugees, like multiple other governors have done, and instead urged Congress to allow states to opt-out of the refugee placement program.

President Barack Obama’s administration has pledged to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. The U.S. State Department has said the refugees would be spread across the country.

The head of the U.S Committee for Refugees and Immigration says under the Refugee Act of 1980, governors cannot legally block refugees.

“It makes no sense under the best of circumstances for the United States to allow people into our country who have the avowed desire to harm our communities, our institutions and our people,” Otter said, in the statement issued by his office. “The savage and senseless ISIS-driven attacks in Paris illustrate the essential inhumanity of terrorism and make it clearer than ever that we must make protecting our homeland from this threat our primary focus.”

In a letter to President Obama, the governor urged him to join in shouldering the “shared priority” of safety for American citizens.

He vowed to “use any legal means available to me to protect the citizens I serve.”

The Press contacted several North Idaho state legislators for their reactions to the violence in Paris and an expected influx of Syrian refugees into the U.S.

Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d’Alene, was the only lawmaker immediately available.

“We are at war with the Islamic State, and we must fight them ideologically and violently using all means necessary until we have destroyed them,” Malek said. “Our country has stood since the beginning as a symbol of freedom and hope to those in despair, like the innocents being raped and murdered in Syria.

"The Islamic State not only hates us for that — Paris has proven they will use it against us. The president must make killing ISIS a priority, something he has failed to do so far. Here in Idaho, this war depends on our faithful dedication to the freedom and hope so many before have fought for generations to defend.”

Bill Smith, a political scientist who serves as director of the University of Idaho’s Martin Institute, a program in international studies, said the State Refugee Office reports there are 35 Syrian refugees currently in Idaho and 20 are children.

He said Idaho’s participation in the federal refugee resettlement program is generated from national commitments through the 1967 Protocol to the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951. The earlier focused on refugees in and from Europe, Smith said. The later protocol expanded the mandate to the rest of the world.

Idaho gets about 1 percent of the total resettled refugees that come to the U.S., which is roughly equal to the state’s share of the U.S. population.

“The vast majority of those resettled live in the southern part of the state, especially the Boise area and Twin Falls,” Smith said. “But they are not required to stay there permanently and we have folks in the northern part of the state who have chosen to move here.”

He said virtually all refugees come to Idaho from camps where they are housed, often for years, until the U.S. or another potential host agrees to resettle a certain number of people.

“At that point there is more or less a blind draw with the people in that camp who are eligible; refugees sometimes refer to this as ‘winning the lottery,’” Smith said. “Each person is then vetted carefully through several interviews and health screenings. We do not focus on education or professions or income, just security and health unless there is a specific group we’re working with, for example, former interpreters for U.S. forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, in which case there’s no blind draw. Many of the fears being expressed by Gov. Otter and others seems to presume us collecting people along an escape route rather than from a camp.”

Smith said while there are very few Syrians in the Gem State, the U.S. and Idaho are due for many more as refugees come out of the vetting process. The federal government committed to increase the number of Syrians the U.S. hosts in light of what U.S. allies in Europe are doing, he said.

Members of the U.S. congressional delegation from Idaho — Sens. Risch and Crapo and Reps. Simpson and Labrador — also issued statements Monday calling for the refugee resettlement program to be halted in Idaho until better assurances of security can be obtained.

“Last month, FBI Director James Comey admitted to me in a hearing that he couldn’t guarantee refugees coming to the United States would not include terrorists,” said Labrador, in a statement issued by his office. “I have since received no assurances from the administration that the situation has improved.”

The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee issued a resolution in August calling for Labrador to co-sponsor the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act. In calling for Labrador to sign onto the initiative, the local GOP resolution states 70,000 foreign nationals enter the U.S. each year under the federal resettlement program. That number is multiplied, according to the resolution, “as immigrants are allowed to bring in even their non-nuclear family members such as siblings, parents, and adult children ... Refugee access to welfare on the same basis as a U.S. citizen has made the program a global magnet.”

Introduced by Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act seeks to suspend refugee resettlement to the U.S. until economic costs are analyzed and national security concerns are put to rest. The House Judiciary Committee referred the proposed legislation in early September to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security. Labrador became a co-sponsor on Oct. 27.

Staff writer Maureen Dolan contributed to this report.