Local congressmen reject House bill to bar Syrian refugees

Congressmen representing the Bronx are pushing for the U.S. to provide asylum for refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria as the Senate prepares to take up legislation that would halt the process and require stringent background checks.

Rep. Eliot Engel, of the Bronx and Westchester, and Rep. Charles Rangel, whose district includes a swath of the Bronx, voted against a bill to stop accepting refugees from Syria and Iraq on Nov. 19. The legislation passed with support from Republicans and a number of Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Neither legislator gave an interview for this article. But both have issued statements lambasting the tough stance on refuges that Republicans have taken since terrorist attacks killed 140 people in Paris earlier this month. The Republicans say it is not safe to accept immigrants from a region rife with terrorism. 

“We must… work with our international partners to increase support for refugees fleeing violent extremism in Syria and elsewhere and avoid the error that some are making in the United States of equating refugees with terrorists,” Mr. Rangel said in a statement.

President Barack Obama is expected to veto the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015, or the American SAFE Act of 2015, if it passes the Senate.

Mr. Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, rejected Republican arguments that the country’s current checks while accepting refugees are insufficient.

“The process the United States uses to screen refugees is the most rigorous investigation of any individual trying to enter this country,” he said in Nov. 18 remarks on the floor of the House.

Mr. Engel also recalled the U.S.’ failure to provide refuge for nearly 1,000 German Jews who fled to America in 1939. Just shy of the shores of Miami, the government left messages from a ship carrying them, the MS St. Louis, unanswered.

“Six hundred and twenty passengers ended up back on the continent; 254 of them died in the Holocaust,” Mr. Engel pointed out.