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Sen. Nelson Okay With Vetting Of Syrian Refugees

Florida’s U.S. Senator Bill Nelson was in Pensacola Monday to meet with local business and civic leaders on issues important to the community. It was also an opportunity to provide an update from Washington, including the latest on issues related to Syria.

First, there’s the controversy surrounding the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. Over the past few years, some four million Syrian migrants have been forced to flee the war torn country, causing a migrant crisis in the Middle East and Europe. To date, only about 2,000 have been resettled in the U.S., with some of those in Florida.

“About 175 have already been resettled (in FL) of the 2,000 that are in the country now, that came in over the years,” said Senator Bill Nelson.

The Democrat from Orlando says he’s comfortable with that and plans to resettle 425 additional Syrian refugees in the sunshine state, after learning more about the comprehensive vetting process they must go through.

“I’ve talked with the Sec. of Homeland Security, the head of the FBI and head of the CIA,” Nelson Said. “And, yes, they are going through an extensive background search and double-checking and it takes up to two years, so you’ve got a pretty good idea at the end of two years whether or not this person is gonna be a problem.”

So far, according to Nelson, there are no reports of terrorist activity involving the Syrian refugees. But, that hasn’t eased the concerns of dozens of governors - including Florida Gov. Rick Scott - and many in Congress who have been calling on the Obama Administration to halt the process.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a controversial bill to suspend plans to resettle some 10,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the U.S. in the coming year.

But, Sen. Nelson has said he doesn’t think the legislation will get very far in the senate. Again, that’s primarily because of the extensive vetting process for the refugees. He says he’s more concerned about the potential for terrorists to slip through the visa waiver program.

“The problem right now is the Visa waiver countries, like France, England, Germany,” said Nelson. “All of their citizens don’t have to have a Visa to come into the U.S, just like we as U.S. citizens don’t have to have a Visa to go to Europe.” 

Senator Nelson says increased security measures are being put into effect, particularly at U.S. airports.

One of the big helps will be is if the European countries would help us with our no-fly list, by giving us they’re intel information on their supposed no-fly list, so that we can combine them and check them between all of us.”

When it comes to military action in Syria, Sen. Nelson says a there needs to be a global response.

“We can’t, nor should we, do this alone. And, we can’t, nor should we, put just Americans on the ground fighting ISIS,” he said.

Not surprisingly, French President Francois Hollande has been pressing for a stronger international coalition against the Islamic State group known as ISIS. Hollande met Monday with British Prime Minister David Cameron and will head to Washington and Moscow later in the week.

Senator Bill Nelson says participation by many of the world’s Arab nations will be needed, too, although he knows it’s complicated with their religious divisions.

But, I think after these Paris bombings that have really caught the attention of people that you’re going to see a lot more unanimity of the world nations to come in and support the United States since we have been doing the precise and the pin-point bombing.”

To that end, the U.S. has been accelerating its attacks on ISIS. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad said Monday that the U.S. hit 283 oil tanker trucks in eastern Syria over the weekend, part of a campaign to cripple the militants’ oil revenues.

France has also carried out strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, with the French Defense Ministry saying it has launched its first airstrikes from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. 

Sandra Averhart has been News Director at WUWF since 1996. Her first job in broadcasting was with (then) Pensacola radio station WOWW107-FM, where she worked 11 years. Sandra, who is a native of Pensacola, earned her B.S. in Communication from Florida State University.