State of Play

The House passed a bill that would effectively shut down the Syrian refugee program for the foreseeable. Though Obama has vowed a veto—saying, via Twitter, “Slamming the door in the face of refugees would betray our deepest values. That’s not who we are. And it’s not what we’re going to do”--some 50 Democrats voted with the GOP. Sen. Cruz defended his plan to screen for religion, while Sen. Schumer, who had indicated an openness to hitting “pause” on the refugee program, came out against doing so. Some Christian groups began publicly splitting with the GOP over treatment of the refugees.

According to a Bloomberg poll released midweek, 53 percent of Americans believe the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. should be halted. The issue divided along partisan lines, with 69 percent of Republicans supporting stoppage of the program, while only 36 percent of Democratic respondents took that view. Forty-six percent of Democrats thought the program should proceed without religious screening, while 12 of Republicans felt that way.

U.S. investigators discussed their challenges in trying to track ISIS suspects stateside—and New York officials sought to persuade a jittery city that they should pay no heed to an ISIS video boasting of a plan to attack the city.  And Hillary rolled out her plans for tackling ISIS—generating headlines for formally calling for a no-fly zone in Syria, one of several ways in which she sought to distance herself from the Obama administration’s current strategy.

Historical analogies were deployed on both sides of the divide. The Center for New Community and the Anti-Defamation League moved swiftly to condemn the mayor of Roanoke, VA’s invoking the Japanese internment during World War II to justify refusing to accept Syrian refugees in his city. CNC launched a Twitter hashtag, #NeverAgain9066, referencing the executive order number authorizing the internment.

Arguments that anti-Syrian refugee rhetoric was all too reminiscent of arguments used by opponents of bringing Jews to the U.S. during the Nazi regime, invoking the same kind of religious screening now being proposed by Sen. Ted Cruz among others.

Some commentators faulted the press for beating the drums of war, arguing that accounts of the CIA’s call for more surveillance powers were going unchecked. Grantees passed around an article by Jonathan Zitrain, professor at Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society and a board member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on why compelling back doors to internet apps won’t work.

Anti-Muslim advocates seemed more active on the refugee issue than on the hate crime front—a function perhaps of the sad fact that they have by now been through this drill many times, and have their response machinery pretty well down.

Advocates pushing against the Republican move to stem the flow of Syrian refugees into the U.S. found support from some unexpected validators. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes the United States will remain “open and welcoming” to refugees. Earlier this week, she said, "What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us." According to CATO: "Of the 859,629 refugees admitted from 2001 onwards, only three have been convicted of planning terrorist attacks on targets outside of the United States and none was successfully carried out. That is one terrorism-planning conviction for a refugee for every 286,543 of them who have been admitted. To put that in perspective, about 1 in every 22,541 Americans committed murder in 2014. The terrorist threat from Syrian refugees in the United States is hyperbolically over-exaggerated and we have very little to fear from them because the refugee vetting system is so thorough." And Ben Wittes, an influential voice at the Brookings Institution on national security issues and the law, spoke out in favor of admitting refugees at Lawfare.

In other grantee developments:

--Refugee Council USA and the National Security Network have been inveighing against the House bill to pause the Syrian refugee program, arguing that “H.R. 4038 creates a bureaucratic review process that could take years to implement and would effectively shut down refugee resettlement.”

--The National Immigration Forum Action Fund launched a new digital campaign, #AmericaIsBetter, aimed to pressuring Congress to support refugee resettlement, a robust screening process, and efforts to welcome and integrate them into US communities.

--The National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) is leading The Campaign to TAKE ON HATE, a petition drive praising elected officials who support Syrian refugees, chastise those who are opposing resettlement, and goad those who have stood silent to speak out. The group is also urging anyone who has experienced a hate crime to report it.

--The Sikh Coalition wrote a piece on CNN.com warning against allowing fear to trample American values and reminding readers that Muslims account for the largest proportion of terrorism victims in the world.

-The Center for Victims of Torture penned a blog post entitled “Refugees are Not Terrorists”

--Human Rights First announced they will hold a discussion at their annual fundraiser in December on what more need to be done to protect the most vulnerable in the ongoing refugee crisis. The group also collected a list of editorials from around the country supporting the protection of Syrian refugees:

USA Today: Admit Syrian refugees: Our view

Bloomberg: Shutting the Door on Syrian Refugees Helps Islamic State

California

Los Angeles Times: Stop the fear-mongering on Syrian refugees

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Gov. Brown is right: We can safely accept refugees

District of Columbia

The Washington Post: After Paris, America cannot abandon refugees in need

Florida

The Gainesville Sun: Shutting borders to Syrians is self-defeating

The Independent Florida Alligator: Accepting Syrian refugees is the safer option

Iowa

The Des Moines Register:  How to make refugees our enemies

Kansas

The Kansas City Star: Sam Brownback yields to hysteria, shuts out Syrian refugees

Massachusetts

The Boston Globe: Paris attacks: Baker, others wrong to reject Syrian refugees

Missouri

STLtoday.com: Anti-Muslim rhetoric is what ISIS wants

New Hampshire

Concord Monitor: Hassan got it wrong on Syrian refugees

New Jersey

Asbury Park Press: Let's not lose America's soul over refugees

MyCentralJersey.com: Don't follow GOP down xenophobic path

NJ.com: Christie and GOP governors: Syrian toddlers' lives don't matter

New York

The New York Times: Editorial: After Paris Attacks, Vilifying Refugees

New York Daily News: Inhuman fearmongering and very human refugees

The Journal News | LoHud.com:   A refugee crisis, and New York's soul

North Carolina

The News & Observer: US should welcome Syrian refugees

Oregon

East Oregonian: Our view: Keeping our humanity in times of terror

Texas

The Dallas Morning News: Abbott's refugee ban panders to xenophobia

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Gov. Abbott slams door on Syrian refugees

Houston Chronicle: Don't say no to Syrian refugees.

Washington

The Olympian: Let us not forget our humanity in refugee crisis