Afraid of What Syrian Refugees Might Do? Chicago Isn't

The city of Chicago has made sure the world knows Syrian refugees are welcome. On Wednesday, the city council passed a symbolic resolution offered by South Side Ald. Ed Burke reaffirming Chicago as a “sanctuary city.”

This comes a day after Gov. Bruce Rauner joined 30 other governors in issuing orders to close their states specifically to Syrian refugees.

To date, more than 4 million Syrians have fled the war-torn nation, some escaping the civil war and others escaping the Islamic State terrorists that have claimed large parts of Syria. Most of the refugee Syrians live in camps in neighboring Arab nations. Many are in Europe.

Burke and other aldermen are ready for many more. So is Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called Chicago “Paris on the prairie” in voicing his disdain for the position taken by the governor.

On Wednesday, Burke criticized Rauner and the other governors for their orders, noting that states don’t have the power to defy the federal government’s immigration decisions.

“They don’t have any power to block the federal government from relocating refugees,” Burke said, as quoted in a DNAinfo Chicago report. “But what it does, I’m afraid, is it just demonizes a whole class of people who are struggling as it is to keep their families together and to stay alive.

“We have as much power as the governor has, which is none. But what we do have is the opportunity to go on the record as stating that Chicago, the most American of American cities, welcomes people in distress and in trouble and tries to help rather than demonize them.”

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Historic Parallels

The resolution passed on a unanimous voice vote as a Syrian refugee couple who arrived in Chicago in February, Fatima and Fadi Idriss, watched with their two young sons.

The discussion among aldermen was emotional. Mayor Rahm Emanuel drew a comparison to his grandfather’s arrival in Chicago a century ago as he fled the Jewish pogroms of Eastern Europe.

President Obama would like the United States to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year. Refugees seeking relocation to the United States are required to live in refugee camps while their backgrounds are checked by various agencies, including the National Counterterrorism Center, the Terrorist Screening Center, the Department of Defense, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department, as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Refugees cannot leave the camps while these investigations take place. Typically, the background checks take 18 months to three years.

Burke also noted that refugees are scrutinized “far more thoroughly than American gun owners.”

Research published by the Cato Institute supports that comparison:

Of the 859,629 refugees (from all nations) admitted from 2001 onwards, only three have been convicted of planning terrorist attacks on targets outside of the United States and none was successfully carried out. That is one terrorism-planning conviction for a refugee for every 286,543 of them who have been admitted. To put that in perspective, about 1 in every 22,541 Americans committed murder in 2014. The terrorist threat from Syrian refugees in the United States is hyperbolically over-exaggerated and we have very little to fear from them because the refugee vetting system is so thorough.

The governor justified his decision in his Tuesday announcement:

“We must find a way to balance our tradition as a state welcoming of refugees while ensuring the safety and security of our citizens. Therefore, the state of Illinois will temporarily suspend accepting new Syrian refugees and consider all of our legal options pending a full review of our country’s acceptance and security processes by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”

Emanuel, criticizing the governor as well as U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who called for a “pause” in the refugee review process, said those positions are not only wrong, they are un-American.

“At every moment in American history, there has been a point where we have walked away from our values: the Alien-Sedition Act; Habeas Corpus; the Japanese internment and when the St. Louis boat from Germany turned kids away from these shores,” the mayor said. “At every one of those dark moments, America was not stronger. America was weaker, because we actually wavered in our commitment to our values and who we are. For those who talk about putting a pause on our values, what built this country was not putting a pause on our values, our freedom and our ideals. It was doubling down and committing to those values because that is why America is still a beacon of hope.”

• RELATED: Syrian Refugee Family Denied Entry into Indiana

‘Security Concerns’

The Chicago Tribune asked the governor’s office whether state services have been cut off to the refugees already in Illinois, as has happened in neighboring Indiana where a refugee family was turned away by the state on Wednesday. States may not have the authority to defy federal immigration law, but states may very well deny services to refugees.

Rauner’s spokesperson declined to answer.

“The governor has been very clear — we need to preserve our heritage as a state welcoming of refugees while addressing the all-too-real security concerns that continue to evolve every day,” Catherine Kelly said in a statement to the Tribune and other news media.

The concern is that terrorists will hide among the Syrian refugees and sneak into the United States. People familiar with the background-check process say that it’s highly unlikely an ISIS terrorist would live in a refugee camp for three years in order to gain entry to the United States.

Suzanne Akhras, director of the Syrian Community Network and a Burr Ridge resident, made an offer Wednesday night to the governor during a press conference at Refugee One in Chicago, an organization that helps settle refugees.

“We’d love to invite the governor to meet with us and meet with refugee families, and I think he will change his mind, and I think it will touch his heart, and he will take back his statement,” she said.

Evangelical Christian groups, notably, are not on board with the governors who want to block the Syrian refugees from finding refuge in America, reports Politico. Many of the groups that work with refugees are faith-based.

Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who co-wrote the resolution with Burke, drew on his faith and echoed the views of Pope Francis on the issue in stating his own.

“We believe Jesus was a refugee,” he said.