{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://dankildee.house.gov/kildee-syrian-refugees-victims-of-terror-federal-vetting-process-exhaustive/", "Kildee: Syrian refugees victims of terror, federal vetting process exhaustive", "2015-12-04", "2015", "2015-12", "Democrat", "House", "MI", "Dan Kildee", "K000380", "dankildee.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Kildee: Syrian refugees \u2018victims of terror,\u2019 federal vetting process \u2018exhaustive\u2019 \n\t\t\t\t\tDecember 4, 2015\n\t\t\t\t\tKildee: Syrian refugees \u2018victims of terror,\u2019 federal vetting process \u2018exhaustive\u2019\nSyrian refugees are \u201cvictims of terror\u201d who have been conflated with perpetrators, according to U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, who criticized \u201ccynical political gestures\u201d to deny or limit resettlement opportunities in the United States.\n\u201cIf we really want to fight terror, we also have to be willing to say we\u2019ll help those people who are seeking refuge,\u201d Kildee, D-Flint, said Friday during a taping of \u201cOff The Record\u201d on WKAR-TV.\n\u201cI think it\u2019s a really dangerous place for us to go as a country when we start thinking about victims of violence who are seeking shelter from the United States, who don\u2019t happen to look like a lot of Americans perhaps \u2014 maybe that\u2019s the issue \u2014 somehow all of a sudden being the problem.\u201d\nKildee, taking questions from a media panel, criticized rhetoric from Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump and said he disagreed with Gov. Rick Snyder\u2019s decision to pause refugee resettlement efforts in Michigan while calling for a review thorough review of the security vetting process.\n\u201cNobody has been able to show me that the process is not exhaustive,\u201d Kildee said. \u201cIt takes 18 to 24 months to get a person throughout the process, whereas just a passport held by a person of Syrian descent who might be a French citizen or a Belgian citizen could get them to New York in six hours.\u201d\nThe Obama administration, responding to the Paris attacks, this week announced a new screening process for passengers entering the U.S. under a visa waiver, flagging those who have previously traveled to a country known to harbor terrorists.\nThat type of action is more appropriate than Congressional attempts to impose restrictions on Syrian refugees, according to Kildee.\n\u201cThe vetting process does work,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat isn\u2019t working is we have a visa waiver program, the president is now addressing this, a visa waiver program that would allow person with an ominous background who happens to possess a European passport to simply get on a plane in Paris and be in New York.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://dankildee.house.gov/kildee-syrian-refugees-victims-of-terror-federal-vetting-process-exhaustive/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5953020192682743, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}