Catholic Church defies Indiana governor and settles Syrian family in state

Image: AP Photo/Santi Palacios

A humanitarian aid organization affiliated with the Catholic Church welcomed a young Syrian family to Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday night, where they will be resettled, over the objections of the state's Republican governor.

Indianapolis Archbishop Joseph Tobin announced on Tuesday that a Syrian family, consisting a mother, father and two young children, had safely arrived in the city the night before, three years after fleeing the violence in Syria and applying for asylum in the U.S.

Gov. Mike Pence, who had said he would stop refugees from settling in Indiana last November, said he "respectfully disagrees" with the move, his spokesperson Matt Lloyd said in a statement, despite holding Catholic Charities "in the highest regard."

The family was put through a rigorous two years of intensive background checks and security measures, the organization said, which did not release their names or ages of the children.

They was brought to the state as part of a public-private partnership between the federal government and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Migration and Refugee Services, Tobin explained, and the family will get aid and support from the group's local branch.

The archbishop said he consulted Gov. Pence before the relocation but ultimately disagreed with the governor's stance, who had hoped to keep Syrian refugees at bay "until he was satisfied proper security measures were in place," according to the November announcement.

"I listened to the governor's concerns regarding security and prayerfully considered his request that we defer from welcoming them until Congress had approved new legislation regarding immigrants and refugees," wrote Tobin.

In denouncing the move, Pence pointed to the Paris terror attacks as rationale for keeping Syrians out of his state, which he said "involved a Syrian refugee as one of the attackers."

French officials, however, haven't said for sure if that's true.

The only attackers involved in the Paris assault who have been positively identified are European, and not one attacker has been identified as a Syrian refugee.

Those reports first surfaced when a Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the attackers, leading officials to speculate that one of the men may have posed as a refugee to move from Syria, where the Islamic State militant group is based, and into Europe.

The U.S. background check program is a stringent months-long process screen process that involves checks with the U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Defense as well as the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center to determine that those admitted into the country do not pose a security threat to the U.S.

Ironically, Pence also tweeted Tuesday on his opposition to Donald Trump's widely-criticized call to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S., calling it "offensive and unconstitutional."

Federal guidelines require that states provide assistance to refugees, without regards to nationality — a fact that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reminded governors of in a letter sent last month.

Additionally, the Civil Rights Act prohibits states from denying federally funded benefits to eligible refugees.

Despite stating that the "State of Indiana will continue to suspend its participation in the resettlement of Syrian refugees," Pence said the Indiana Department of Health would still reimburse county health departments for screening them, including people who originated in Syria, thought it was not immediately clear if the governor's office would move to block state aid for this particular Syrian family.

Nonprofit organizations typically fund the initial resettlement, but the state receives money from the federal government for employment training, English language classes and other services for the families in the weeks, months and years that follow.

The settlement of this Syrian family follows the rejection of another, which was due to arrive in Indiana in late November. In that case, the state asked the Exodus Refugee Immigration organization to redirect the family elsewhere.

That family was eventually settled in Connecticut, though the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a federal lawsuit against Pence on behalf of Exodus, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Indiana continues to welcome refugees of other nationalities and resettled 28 from Burma and the Congo in the past month.