A South Carolina lawmaker blasted GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley for her stance on ”Obama’s refugee resettlement program” throughout her time as governor.
”I used to be serving on county council nearly 10 years in the past, once we needed to inform Nikki Haley, by decision, to cease supporting Obama’s refugee resettlement program,” South Carolina state Rep. Stewart Jones, a Republican, mentioned in a clip initially shared by the MAGA Battle Room account on X earlier this month and reposted Monday by Staff Trump.
Fox Information Digital reached out to Haley’s marketing campaign for touch upon Monday, however didn’t instantly hear again.
In November 2015, Haley, then the governor of South Carolina, particularly requested the State Division to not resettle Syrian refugees within the Palmetto State amid rising concern from native lawmakers within the wake of a collection of coordinated Islamist terrorist assaults carried out in Paris, France, and town’s northern suburb, Saint-Denis, that killed 130 individuals.
However Jones, who was serving on the Laurens County Council on the time, instructed Fox Information Digital that earlier in 2015, Haley had ignored plenty of state provisions by persevering with to help the Obama-era resettlement program, prompting a large push by state lawmakers in September and October calling on the governor to reverse course earlier than the Paris assaults.
”Nikki has truthfully, she’s acquired extra flip-flops than a seaside,” Jones, who’s operating for the U.S. Home in South Carolina’s third Congressional District, mentioned. ”That is principally how I take a look at it. I imply, she ultimately sort of backed off of it, however she nonetheless supported it otherwise.”
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”I do not consider we all know how many individuals really have been coming in, particularly now. I imply, now, I would say with our southern border concern that we now have, , with it simply being huge open, we now have no clue how many individuals are coming into this nation, and there is estimates and so forth,” Jones instructed Fox Information Digital. ”It is a main, main concern. And I believe Nikki Haley can be very detrimental. She would damage the scenario even additional. And, we acquired, we acquired to safe the border.”
Nikki Haley hosted a rally in Conway on Jan. 28, 2024, as a part of her swing within the Palmetto State main as much as Saturday’s South Carolina main. (Peter Zay/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures)
Then-President Obama’s administration had vowed to just accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees over a 12-month interval on the time, based on WYFF, however South Carolina lawmakers expressed concern to Haley concerning the vetting technique of refugees from battle zones, citing how French authorities mentioned a Syrian passport was discovered close to one of many attackers, and the Paris prosecutor’s workplace mentioned fingerprints from one of many attackers matched these of somebody who handed by way of Greece only a month earlier.
Haley mentioned she nonetheless supported teams like Lutheran Companies of the Carolinas and the World Aid Group bringing refugees into South Carolina from elsewhere on the earth, together with areas just like the Congo, Burma, Ukraine and Iraq, acknowledging in a letter to then-Secretary of State John Kerry that such migrants are sometimes fleeing spiritual persecution.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley holds a information convention for the Republican Governors Affiliation on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 23, 2015. Republican and Democratic governors met with President Barack Obama on the White Home through the affiliation’s winter assembly. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures)
”As Governor, it’s my first and first obligation to make sure the protection of the residents of South Carolina. We’re a state that has proudly welcomed refugees from all over the world as a part of the US Refugee Resettlement Program…. Whereas I agree that the US ought to attempt to help people in such dire conditions, it’s exactly due to the scenario in Syria that makes their admission into the US a possible menace to our nationwide safety,” she wrote to Kerry on the time. ”For that cause, I ask that you simply honor my request and never resettle any Syrian refugees in South Carolina.”
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Haley additionally talked about how two interpreters who labored along with her husband in Afghanistan have been introduced over by way of the U.S. resettlement program below Obama.
Protesters on the South Carolina Statehouse throughout an indication in response to the Trump administration’s government order blocking entry of refugees and vacationers from seven predominantly Muslim international locations on Jan. 31, 2017. (Sean Rayford/Getty Pictures)
”These are individuals who have protected our troops. These are individuals being persecuted for being Christian. These are individuals being damage due to their political opinions. These are individuals who we took in as a result of they weren’t protected the place they have been,” Haley mentioned on the time, based on WIS-TV.
Haley is competing in opposition to former President Trump within the South Carolina GOP main on Feb. 24.
The Obama administration pledged in 2016 to usher in greater than 110,000 refugees from all over the world in that fiscal yr – a difficulty that sparked heated debate through the presidential election cycle, with Trump and others elevating concern that terrorists could possibly be amongst them.
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Trump has the backing of most Republican state and federal elected officers in South Carolina within the 2024 race regardless of Haley serving as governor from 2011 to 2017.
Trump tapped Haley to serve in his administration as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.