Gov. David Ige said Monday that he would welcome Syrian refugees to Hawaii — in contrast to more than two dozen other governors who have come out in opposition to relocating the refugees in their respective states in the wake of last week’s Paris bombings.
The opposition, primarily from Republican governors, is in apparent reaction to concerns among authorities that at least one of the suspects in the Paris attack, which left 129 people dead and several hundred wounded, entered Europe among a recent wave of Syrians seeking refuge from an increasingly violent civil war.
“As President Obama has said, slamming the door in their face would be a betrayal of our values,” Ige said in a statement released to the media. “Hawaii and our nation have a long history of welcoming refugees impacted by war and oppression. Hawaii is the Aloha State, known for its tradition of welcoming all people with tolerance and mutual respect.”
Ige said that refugees are let into the United States only after “the most vigorous and highest level of screening and security vetting.”
“I am confident that our state will work closely with the federal government to ensure that appropriate resources and support are available before any refugees arrive in Hawaii,” Ige said.
Jodi Leong, a spokeswoman for the governor, clarified that Hawaii is not expecting an influx of Syrian refugees. The governor’s statements were prompted by national media polls on the issue.
Some 4 million refugees have fled Syria to countries throughout Europe as human rights abuses and poverty mount. The Islamic State, which has taken credit for the Paris bombings, has taken control over parts of Syria in a multisided civil war that arose out of the Arab Spring protests. Media reports have chronicled an increasingly brutal war that has included chemical warfare and systematized rape.
Only a small fraction of the Syrians who have fled their country, fewer than 2,000, have relocated to the United States, according to a New York Times analysis. Most of the refugees have been placed in areas where there is a healthy job market and housing prices are low. None of the refugees has been placed in Hawaii, according to the analysis.
Obama has increased the number of Syrians who will be allowed into the United States this fiscal year to 10,000.
Governors in all of the Southern states, from Texas to North Carolina, and Tennessee to Florida, have come out against accepting Syrian refugees, according to a CNN poll. Governors in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, as well as a number of Southwestern and Central states, also opposed accepting Syrian refugees.
The federal government, not the states, has authority over admitting refugees into the country. Refugees must undergo security checks, a medical exam and an in-person interview, according to information from the State Department.
Sen. Sam Slom, Hawaii’s only Republican senator, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he thought the governor’s statements were premature in light of unresolved questions about how the state would support an influx of refugees and concerns about adequate vetting by federal immigration officials.
“Hawaii is having a more and more difficult time taking care of the needs of residents, and we are overwhelmed with the cost of homeless and the services we are giving them,” he said, noting that the state is also having to shoulder the costs of Micronesian migrants. “Where is the additional money going to come from to take care of the so-called Syrian refugees?”
Hawaii ranks highest in the nation when it comes to the number of homeless per capita, according to federal statistics. Ige and county officials have been struggling to find adequate housing and shelter space to accommodate the growing number of people living on the streets.
