Congress Considers Cutting State Department Funding for Refugee Resettlement

Congress is considering proposals to cut federal funding to the State Department that enable it to admit refugees into the United States, according Rep. Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.), who warned in an interview Thursday with the Washington Free Beacon that the country’s southern border is providing a pathway for potential terrorists to enter the United States undetected.

Duncan, chair of the House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and a member of its Homeland Security Committee, said that after Congress votes on a measure that would pause the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States, it could move forward on a proposal to freeze funding that enables the State Department to resettle these individuals.

The next step is “to push to deny funding to the State Department for processing these Syrian refugees until we can get some assurances vetting can happen,” Duncan said, adding that Obama administration officials have admitted that it has little ability to vet Syrian refugees applying for asylum in the U.S.

Administration officials have “told us on record that we can’t vet the Syrians, that the records don’t exist,” Duncan said, noting that many in Congress are concerned that the United States lacks the ability to assess whether an individual is tied to terrorists.

Congress is scheduled to first vote on legislation that would pause the entry of Syrian refugees into America until agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and FBI establish mechanisms to vet these individuals.

The bill would force relevant U.S. agencies to “actually sign off on each refugee,” Duncan said. Currently, DHS and the FBI do not have a role in vetting refugees, a process that is left solely up to the State Department.

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