REDLANDS >> Some members of Redlands Townhall and the Redlands Tea Party Patriots have called on city officials to keep Syrian and African refugees from resettling here.
They asked City Council members Tuesday what their plan will be if the city is asked to resettle some of the 85,000 refugees expected to come to the United States in 2016.
“We are researching the issue and preparing to provide information to the City Council in the near future,” said city spokesman Carl Baker in an email.
As many as 9 million people have been displaced as a result of the civil war in Syria. More than 4 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations.
Secretary of State John Kerry said last month that the United States will accept 85,000 refugees, up from 70,000, from around the world in 2016 and that the number would rise to 100,000 in 2017.
Many of the refugees would be Syrian and others would be from strife-torn areas of Africa.
“Where will they be housed? How will their expenses be paid and by whom? And what will be done to ensure the safety of our community? Our biggest concern is the safety of our family, our children and our grandchildren,” Victoria Hargrave of Redlands Townhall said the council on Tuesday.
“The Obama administration would like to bring in 85,000 Syrian refugees into our country in the calendar year that just started on Oct. 1 and they have admitted that they have no database or source of information with which to vet these refugees,” she said. “There are primarily Sunni Muslims. Al-Qaida are Sunni Muslims whose culture and ideology are completely contrary to our Constitution.”
Intelligence officials and Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns that Islamic State militants could seek to slip into Europe or the U.S. posing as migrants.
Syrian migrants to the U.S. would be referred by the U.N. refugee agency, screened by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and resettled around the country.
Myhanh Luu, refugee resettlement service director for Catholic Charities San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, which has assisted refugees from all over the world, said they have not yet heard about the Syrian and African refugees needing resettlement in the Inland Empire.
“We are a refugee resettlement agency, so we always resettle refugees when they come to the Inland Empire,” Luu said. “We’re always here and always ready for refugees to come in, but we have not heard anything about that group yet.”
Mayor Paul Foster said he directed City Manager N. Enrique Martinez to look into the issue. But, he said, it is not the city’s business to tell a parish not to sponsor refugees.
“They certainly would have the right, as they did years ago when we had Laotian and Vietnamese refugees and Cambodian refugees,” Foster said. “Groups all over the country brought refugees in, primarily through faith-based organizations and churches themselves and sponsored them and helped them reestablish their lives in our country.
“I certainly don’t see that as being something local municipal governments should be out there opposing or fighting in any way or telling them what they should be doing.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
“Where will they be housed?”
YOU don’t need the one YOU have.
“How will their expenses be paid and by whom?”
With YOUR tax dollars by the jews.
“And what will be done to ensure the safety of our community?”
Since when is YOUR safety OUR concern?
“Our biggest concern is the safety of our family, our children and our grandchildren,”
Better buy guns & LOTS of ammo, then.