Key House lawmakers calls on Obama to suspend Syrian immigration plans

United Nations urges countries to treat refugees with "compassion and empathy"

WASHINGTON: The chairman of the US House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee has called on President Barack Obama to suspend plans to admit Syrian refugees into the United States, Fox News reported on Monday.

"Leaders from the FBI, the National Counter-terrorism Centre, or NCTC, and Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly indicated to my committee that we lack the on the ground intelligence necessary to thoroughly vet Syrian refugees seeking to resettle here," Representative Michael McCaul said in a letter to Obama, the cable news outlet reported.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has urged countries to treat refugees with "compassion and empathy" after deadly attacks in Paris sparked some European demands to halt an influx of migrants and several US states closed their doors to Syrian refugees.



Some politicians in Europe and North America have warned that countries face big risks by admitting refugees without rigorously determining if any could be dangerous extremists.

Concerns were raised after authorities said the holder of a Syrian passport found near the body of one of the gunmen who died in Friday night's attacks in Paris was registered as a refugee in several European countries last month.

The militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Paris that killed 129 people. Islamic State, also known as Daesh, controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, where it has declared a caliphate.

"The reaction to the wave of refugees that we're seeing should be one of compassion and empathy. These are people who are fleeing the very destruction of Daesh that we're seeing in Paris," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

"Obviously it is understandable that countries need to take whatever measures they need to take to protect their own citizens against any form of terrorism. But obviously focusing that on refugees, vulnerable people who are themselves fleeing violence, I think would not be the right way to go," he said.

Europe has faced a flood of more than 800,000 migrants and refugees this year escaping wars and deprivation in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. About half of those arriving come from Syria, according to the UN refugee agency.



Since the Paris bloodshed, populist leaders around Europe have rushed to demand a halt to an influx of refugees and migrants. Poland said it could not accept migrants under EU quotas without security guarantees.

Seven US governors have said they would not allow Syrian refugees to be settled in their states, contending it is too dangerous to let in people from that war-torn country following the Paris attacks.