The US House of Representatives has voted 289-137 to restrict Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement in the US, as many of the left leaning Democrats joined the right leaning Republicans in a vote seen as a rebuke to the White House.
The legislation will have to pass through the Senate before reaching President Obama who has said he will veto the legislation. If it was passed, the FBI would be required to background check all Syrian and Iraqi refugees, with Homeland Security having to agree each refugee was not a “threat to the security of the United States”.
The bill is as a result of last weeks attacks in Paris where 129 people were killed and many more are still critically ill in hospital.
Islamic State are claiming responsibility for the attacks with Belgian National ‘ringleader’ of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud having been shot dead in this mornings raids in the Parisian suburb of Saint Denis.
The attacks on Paris were planned in Belgium but ordered by IS from Syria in retribution for the recent French airstrikes there.
US Republicans are attempting to pass this legislation in an attempt to curtail any clandestine Islamic State immigration to the US which they fear might make planning acts of terror easier. However, with Abaaoud a Belgian national, it is difficult to see how legislation restricting Iraqis and Syrians would have helped in this case.
Abaaoud’s ex wife has claimed that he had attended a Catholic School before dropping out, did not attend Mosque and had spent his days drinking and taking drugs as well as having convictions for theft, contrary to the teachings of the Koran.
