U.S. governors can't really stop Syrian refugees from resettling in their states

The governors of at least 26 states, all but one of them Republicans, have said they oppose allowing Syrian refugees into their states after last Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris. From Turkey, President Obama criticized as "shameful" this symbolic slamming of doors to people fleeing violence and terrorism at home, from both the governors and almost every Republican presidential candidate, asserting that the U.S. "can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security." The Republicans generally responded that letting in Syrian Muslims is an unnecessary risk to the people they are expected to protect.

If any of the Republicans wins the White House next year — and hasn't changed his mind again — he or she can stop accepting the Syrian refugees. The GOP-led Congress can (and might) try to block funding for resettling the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama has said the U.S. will vet and accept over the next year. The Republican governors, however, probably can't do all that much.

"My hunch is that they don't have the power to stop it," John Barcanic, the executive director of refugee resettlement agency World Relief Chicago, told The New York Times. "It's the Department of State who decides whether we'll take certain kinds of refugees. Once somebody is in the country, I'm fairly certain that a governor doesn't have the ability to stop somebody from living in their state simply because of their race." Kevin Appelby, director of migration policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — the largest resettlement agency in the country, CNN says — says that states can make it harder by cutting off funding for their own refugee services, but "when push comes to shove, the federal government has both the plenary power and the power of the 1980 Refugee Act to place refugees anywhere in the country."

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Republican strategists are debating whether the GOP hard line on Syrian refugees — Donald Trump suggested closing down mosques, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said "I don't think that orphans under 5 should be admitted to the United States at this point" — will help or hurt the party next year, The Washington Post notes. And at least seven Democratic governors — in Washington, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut, and Hawaii — have said they will welcome Syrian refugees. Associated Press immigration reporter Alicia Caldwell explains more about the politics and logistics of resettling refugees in the video below. Peter Weber