The South Carolina senate passed a bill which would make refugee sponsors liable for damages caused by crimes or terrorism committed by the refugees they sponsored. The vote came just one day after terrorists attacked the airport in Brussels, murdering 38 people, including 4 Americans.
The legislation would apply to Catholic Charities and other religious and secular organizations.
South Carolina’s The State reported that state Sen. Kevin Bryan (R-Anderson) who co-sponsored the bill in South Carolina, said the legislation should slow or halt the resettlement of refugees. “With the danger today of a terrorist infiltrating the refugee program, we have no other option than to enroll this information,” Bryant told the newspaper. “We’ve got to choose our own citizens over those who are not citizens of our country.”
The publication reported that if passed, the legislation would require:
- Sponsors to enroll refugees with the S.C. Department of Social Services within 30 days of their entering the state.
- Social Services to forward refugee information to the State Law Enforcement Division.
- State Law Enforcement Division and local law enforcement agencies to check whether refugees pose a safety risk.
“It’s the first time the Legislature in the state of South Carolina and the Legislature in the state of New York are on the same page,” Bryant said. “New York has seen attacks. They have experienced it first hand. Hopefully, this legislation will prevent an attack here in South Carolina.” The AP has reported that New York is the only other state considering a refugee registry.
The Palmetto State paper also reported that one of those to vote against the bill, state Sen. Brad Hutto (D- Orangeburg) said, “In general, registries would be disfavored and not really what most people considered American. We often don’t like the idea of the government keeping tabs on everybody.” Hutto was one of the six, all Democrats, to vote against the bill.
According to The State, the vote in the state senate was 39-6. If passed by the House and signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley, the bill would also provide for keeping a registry of refugees in the state.
Gov. Haley has been accused of being lax on illegal immigration and refugee settlement in the state. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump charged that Haley is weak on illegal immigration, as reported by Breitbart News. Breitbart News also reported the fact that Haley is being sued by South Carolinians for her failure to take any action to stop the wave of Muslim refugees being brought into the state.
Ann Coulter has also taken swipes at Haley saying, “It’s amazing that the plutocrats are so powerful in America today that governors are willing to give up one of their own most fundamental powers — the power to exclude — in order to keep funneling cheap labor to the wealthy. Amazing,” she told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement. “All these Republican governors who pretend they LOVED Justice Scalia ought to be held at gunpoint and forced to read — assuming they can read — Scalia’s concurrence in Arizona v. United States, where he goes through several centuries of law on a STATE’S power to exclude immigrants,” Coulter added.
Justice Scalia wrote:
Though it may upset foreign powers — and even when the Federal Government desperately wants to avoid upsetting foreign powers — the States have the right to protect their borders against foreign nationals, just as they have the right to execute foreign nationals for murder.
Lindsey Graham has also said that the United States should admit “our fair share” of Syrian refugees into the country, as reported by Breitbart News.
After the terrorist attacks in Paris in November, governors in the nation publicly rejected President Obama’s plan to relocate Syrian refugees into the United States, as reported by Breitbart News. One of the terrorists had entered Paris under the pretense that he was a Syrian refugee. The number of governors calling a halt to resettlement of the refugees grew after the initial list of governors was reported.
Breitbart Texas reported that Texas Governor Greg Abbott called upon President Obama to halt the settlement of Syrian refugees in the Lone Star State after the Paris attack that killed and/or injured approximately 200 people. The Texas governor said he would not “roll the dice” with the safety of Texans.
The first man charged with the Islamic State attacks in Brussels is a migrants rights activist and “freelance journalist” who lived next door to the headquarters of the European Union (EU), as reported by Breitbart News.
Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as an associate judge and prosecutor in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2