Paris attacks stoke fears at home over Syrian refugees

As anxiety over Syrian refugees entering the United States has escalated in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks, the White House and experts tried to calm fears Tuesday by saying those fleeing the war-torn country are seeking a safe haven and are intensely scrutinized for terror ties.

But the argument for moving forward with the Obama administration’s plan to allow another 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country in the next year is being overshadowed by a ballooning number of Republicans who believe the policy will only open the door to saboteurs bent on killing Americans.

As the debate raged Tuesday, more than half of the nation’s governors, including one Democrat, said they opposed allowing Syrian refugees to be resettled in their states. Congressional Republican leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell called on the federal government to take a step back and rethink the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the country.

“We think the prudent, the responsible thing is to take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population,” Ryan said.

Stoking concerns were reports that one of the terrorists killed in the Paris attacks may have had a Syrian passport, but it remained unclear if the document was fake.

Trump: ‘Trojan Horse’

Ryan, the new House speaker, issued his statement a day after presidential candidate Donald Trump wondered out loud if Syrian refugees were a “Trojan Horse,” while one of his opponents in the Republican primary, Mike Huckabee, said in a radio interview that the U.S. had no “responsibility to import terror into the United States.”

Senior Obama administration officials countered by explaining Tuesday that the vetting process to allow Syrian refugees entry, which takes an average of 18 to 24 months, is robust and comprehensive.

“I want to reassure you all that all refugees of all nationalities considered for admission to the United States undergo intensive security screening, and this involves multiple federal intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies. And we do this to ensure that those admitted are not known to pose a threat to our country,” said a senior administration official in a conference call with reporters.

Since 2011, just over 2,000 Syrian refugees have been admitted into the United States. One such refugee, Mohammad Rawas, escaped bloodshed in Syria to come to Oakland with his family this past spring. The opportunity to bring his wife and four young children to safety in America was, he said, indescribable.

“Now we are in a place where we are safe and secure. It is very different than how we were living before,” he said, recalling the days and months after the Syrian war began in 2011 when his Damascus suburb changed forever.

Rawas, who juggles multiple part-time jobs while taking English courses after being resettled in the Bay Area, wants only to live the American dream.

‘I want the same thing’

“I’m hoping I can live like everybody else in this country. I want the same thing: safety, security, I want my kids to have a good education,” he said. “I want to start a business. Just pretty much living the dream of everybody else in this country.”

Experts said the uproar over screening refugees, fueled by a presidential campaign season, is unfounded.

“I think this discussion is a little bit misguided,” said Eskinder Negash, the former director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Simply, every refugee coming to this country has to go through a rigorous security background check. I don’t think you’ll find anybody coming as a tourist, student, on business or an immigrant who goes through this kind of security clearance that refugees must go through.”

Specifically, refugee applicants go through biographic and biometric security checks coordinated by multiple government agencies — the State Department, Homeland Security, the FBI and the Department of Defense — including running an applicant’s fingerprints through numerous databases, a senior Obama administration official said. Syrian refugee applicants get an additional check: Their cases are reviewed by specialists ahead of time.

And before any decision is made, refugees also go through a lengthy in-person interview conducted by homeland security officers who are specially trained to scrutinize a refugee’s application.

But the process to place refugees in the country is “very much dependent on the support of local communities,” one official said. Refugees are resettled in nearly 200 locations across the country through a variety of not-for-profit organizations.

Process is exhaustive

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, a clinical professor of law at the Penn State University School of Law, said the process to admit refugees in the U.S. is exhaustive.

“All refugees go through a vigorous screening process before they are admitted into the U.S.,” Wadhia said. “Syrians are no exception. It would be accurate to say they are among the most rigorously screened population that comes to the U.S. It would be misleading to suggest that individuals who are admitted as refugees have not been sufficiently screened or do not have adequate background checks.”

In California, where more than 200 Syrian refugees have been placed, Gov. Jerry Brown said that he would continue to work “closely with the president so that he can both uphold America’s traditional role as a place of asylum, but also ensure that anyone seeking refuge in America is fully vetted in a sophisticated and utterly reliable way.”

David Miliband — the head of the International Rescue Committee, an organization that helps resettle refugees — said “it would be a very sad day if the U.S. abandoned its historic leadership role in refugee resettlement that has been a U.S. success story.”

“It is vital it continues as an example to the world, as a contribution to this country,” said Miliband. “The worst thing tomorrow would be for Americans to start looking at their neighbors who are refugees, wondering if they’ve been allowed in here without any checking. It’s not true, they are only allowed after extensive checking.”

Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz