Cardin, Mikulski and Harris weigh in on Syrian refugees

The fate of Syrian refugees hoping for sanctuary in the United States is now in the hands of our U.S. senators.

The House passed legislation Thursday that would halt the flow of those refugees into the country.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md) said he voted to pass the bill because of FBI testimony to congress.

Harris said the FBI admitted the nation currently does not have the ability to say definitively whether any of these refugees have terrorist affiliations. Because of that, Harris said the bill had to pass.

“Americans agree that we really have to make certain that if we’re going to let refugees from these areas of the world where terrorism is rampant, if we’re going to let them into this county we have to be certain their not terrorists,”Harris said.

Harris said given the success the legislation had in the house, it’s not unreasonable to believe the bill could pass at the Senate as well.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski has not come out and said which way she will vote on the legislation once it comes to the senate.

However Mikulski said in a statement to 47 ABC that “preventing refugees from coming in altogether is an over-reaction to the problem.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Ben Cardin said it’s too early to forecast how the vote will play out. Currently, Cardin said he believes the screening process for refugees is already very stringent. As of right now he added, none of the 2,000 Syrian refugees in the United States have caused a problem.

A more likely venue for terrorists to enter the country, is the visa-waiver program Cardin said.

Currently citizens of certain European countries are allowed to travel to the U.S. without a visa as part of this program.

“Some of these countries have a large number of foreign trained fighters carrying their passports, so we want to expand this and take a look at the security measures we have for everyone visiting our country to make sure that we have adequate information and that we can keep Americans safe,” Cardin said.

Currently the screening process for refugees takes up to two years.

Meanwhile, through the visa waiver program citizens of those countries must register through an electronic system for authorization by the Department of Homeland Security.

After that they would have to pass through regular international security customs at the airport they enter through.