Texas will pull out of the federal refugee-resettlement program in January unless major changes are made by the end of this month, state Attorney General Ken Paxton warned Friday.
"Look, if the federal government is not going to protect the citizens of Texas, we're getting out of the program and we're going to protect the citizens of Texas," Paxton told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "We're going to give a withdrawal notice."
Approximately 6,000 refugees came to Texas in 2015 and 2016, but Texas never knew the extent of the program, said Paxton.
"What we insisted from the very beginning, is knowing where they are from, what their background is, do they pose a threat," the attorney general said. "We've been unable to get that information through litigation or just asking. We think we need it"
Earlier this month, a Homeland Security Inspector General report said that 1,800 individuals were given citizenship by mistake, and that's what prompted Gov. Greg Abbott and other Texas officials into taking action, said Paxton.
"It was the shocking notice that the government doesn't have any idea who they are bringing in, who they are making citizens, and we've already had problems in Texas," said Paxton. "We had an Iraqi refugee that was aiding and abetting terrorists in Houston that had to be arrested. We know we they're bringing in problems and we don't have anything on background.
Earlier this week, Texas officials notified the federal office of the plans to pull out unless the agency unconditionally approves its annual state plan, which requires "national-security officials to ensure that refugees do not pose a security threat to Texas," reports The Atlantic.
"The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the director of National Intelligence have repeatedly declared their inability to fully screen refugees from terrorist-based nations," Abbott said in a statement.
The notice was sent, though, just one day after President Barack Obama told a United Nations summit that he wants to bring in around 110,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017, marking a 60 percent increase over this year's numbers.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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