State Governors Can’t Bar Syrian Refugees, But Their Rhetoric Poses Another Threat

What state governors can actually do to prevent refugees from resettling in their states remains debated. But ultimately, it seems refusing Syrian refugees is illegal on several counts, and Article 31 in the United Nations refugee convention bars discrimination based on the nationality and membership in a particular group. You’d think this would silence the roughly 30 governors who are currently talking about refusing refugees, but that would be to grievously underestimate the lengths conservative politicians will go in their xenophobic fear-mongering. And despite federal law when it comes to resettlement, these governors and conservative politicians do have some influence on how Syrian refugees are going to be treated. The rhetoric they utilize casts refugees as threats to public safety and terrorists, making refugee families vulnerable to hate crimes and all kinds of discrimination.

Last Tuesday, Nov. 13, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) literally issued an executive order for all “departments, budget units, agencies, offices, entities, and officers of the executive branch” of his state to “utilize all lawful means to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the State of Louisiana while this Order is in effect.” But unfortunately for Jindal, as Think Progress points out, there is no “lawful means” to prevent the resettlement of refugees. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana chose a different path to promote xenophobia: fear-mongering. On the campaign trail for Governor of Louisiana, Vitter went so far as to warn residents of the threat of terrorist attacks posed by the 14 Syrian refugees resettled in the state by alleging one of these refugees had suspiciously gone missing (only for this claim to be disproved.)

The obvious issue with conservatives’ dialogue concerning Syrian refugees is that it sweepingly generalizes that all the nonwhite peoples of a nonwhite region are the same thing: terrorists. And in many cases, conservative politicians and state governors aren’t just misrepresenting refugees by portraying them as terrorists, but also through portraying them as predominantly able-bodied adult males in ample shape to carry out the will of ISIS. The reality is that 50.3 percent of the refugees are women, while 51.2 percent of them are youths under the age of 17.

Refugees really shouldn’t appear more or less suspicious based on their age and gender, but the deceitful narrative conservatives are using to inspire fear toward them by misrepresenting refugees’ demographics is obvious. And we only really need to look at cases of violence toward racial minorities, primarily those performed by supporters of Republican front-runner Donald Trump, to know that generating racially-charged paranoia in the masses puts these groups at high-risk for violence.

The Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.” So, no, states don’t get to overrule the federal government on matters like resettling displaced refugees. But that doesn’t mean we can underestimate the power of state governors in this scenario. Not only can they can limit funding to crucial organizations that work to resettle refugees, but ultimately, they can also ensure that refugee families feel both unwelcome and unsafe.