May 3, 2024 |
Photo – College campus protest – Courtesy Fox News
Wyoming Senior Senator John Barrasso is among 35 Republicans in the upper body of Congress and others in the House who are moving to head President Joe Biden from resettling Palestinians in American communities.
“Pro-Hamas lunatics have taken over college campuses,” Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia said this week. “And Joe Biden’s response is to consider ‘welcoming refugees from Gaza’? Absolute disgrace,” Rep. Clyde said.
CBS News reported this week that according to internal federal government documents it had obtained, senior federal officials have considered plans to resettle Palestinian refugees in the U.S. as the war between Israel and Hamas nears seven months. Although, the White House plans are not fully vetted. The Palestinian refugees would have to meet stringent qualifications. Members of the senate, including Wyoming’s John Barrasso are drawing a hard line against any plan.
In a letter to the president dated May 1, 2024, the senators state, “We are not confident that your administration can adequately vet this high-risk population for terrorist ties and sympathies before admitting them into the United States.”
According to the senator in their letter, one White House proposal involves resettling Gazans who have already made it out of the Gaza Strip and entered Egypt, a country that has publicly stated that it does not want the refugees. The plan seeks to pull Gazans out of the Strip and directly into the United States.
In their letter to the President, the senators note that U.S. and allied officials “have very little access to Gazans living in the area, making it nearly impossible to conduct thorough vetting before admitting them into our country.”
The senators go onto demand answers from the White House on a series of questions, including the number of Gazans that President Bide wants to accept into the United States, and how will the Administration implement a screening process to weed out those with terrorist links or sympathies. The senators also request that the White House identify the proposed locations in the U.S. for the resettlement communities.
Senator Barrasso’s signature is the fourth name listed on the letter, immediately below Sen. Mitch McConnell’s. Also signing the letter is Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.
Carrying out any plan to resettle Gazans as refugees would mark a shift in US government policy, which has not traditionally assisted Palestinians in large numbers.
Over the last two weeks of campus unrest across the nation, nearly 2,200 arrests have occurred in pro-Hamas/anti-Israel unrest on college campuses, according to media reports on Friday.
