A majority of U.S. governors are telling the president in no uncertain terms now they won’t allow anymore Syrian refugees to come into their states.
Those jitters and the joint ultimatum come in the wake of last week’s devastating attacks on soft-targets in Paris by Syrian sympathizers and émigrés which left more than 400 unarmed Parisians injured or slain.
French officials themselves have deployed over 100,000 soldiers throughout the country this week, in a nationwide crackdown aimed at Daesh and at apprehending the masterminds of November 13th’s “coordinated” attacks.
France has as well stepped up police patrols in its beleaguered capitol city, executing a broad search and arrest policy not seen there in more than half a century.
One predawn raid today in the Parisian suburb of St. Denis saw two armed suspects blow themselves up, in the process wounding at least five law enforcement agents and killing one veteran police dog.
The special operation was launched on a tip that one of the planners of the Bataclan bloodbath and other deadly attacks last week was holed up in an apartment building in St. Denis’s squalid Muslim district.
It reportedly netted seven armed radicals, although whether hunted terror-mastermind Salah Abdeslam, or his coconspirator Abdelhamid Abaaoud, are among those arrested this morning hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Obama had previously agreed to “thoroughly vet” and resettle about 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming years. A decision made well before the deadly Paris attacks were orchestrated by Syrian-based terror group Daesh this month.
White House sources indicated today that those plans are still in place, despite more than half of U.S. governors drawing red lines in the sand on Monday and informing the lame-duck president they won’t be permitting those Syrians to enter their states.
Legal experts warn that all immigration matters -- and numbers -- lie solely to the federal government and the president to decide, although the political standoff over it could definitely pose a substantial “obstacle” to resettlement efforts.