Reality check: Congress is running out of time, and will, to respond this year to Paris attacks

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The dome of the Capitol with flags at half-staff at the Washington Monument after President Obama issued a proclamation as a mark of respect for victims of the Paris attacks. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

The House voted last week to indefinitely stall refugees from Syria and Iraq from finding asylum in the United States — an action rooted in public polling, 2016 politics and a desire for swift action, or the appearance of it, by the chamber that casts itself as the leading obstacle to President Obama’s agenda.

But now that the House is on record, and the political points scored, the question remains: What, if anything, can Congress do to stop a resolute president from continuing to take in those refugees? And, beyond that, lawmakers must ask themselves whether curbing the small number of refugees from those two countries is the most appropriate or legislatively viable response.

The most cynical way to view Thursday’s vote to halt the intake of refugees from Iraq and Syria is that the House did what it often does: pass a political messaging bill on the way out the door for a Congressional recess, knowing it likely will never become law.

Obama already has threatened to veto the legislation, and he appears unmoved by either polls suggesting the majority of Americans support the Republican position or the fact that 47 House Democrats supported it. Administration officials point out that fewer than 2,000 Syrian refugees have entered the U.S. over the past four years, and all of them go through an extensive 18- to 24-month vetting process. Moreover, none of the terrorists deemed responsible for the Paris attacks to date were Syrian nationals with refugee status in France.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has put the House bill on the Senate calendar, meaning he can call it up for a vote at any time. The bill, the American SAFE Act — short for Security Against Foreign Enemies — would require “unanimous concurrence” of the heads of multiple, relevant agencies on whether to admit a Syrian or Iraqi refugee and monthly reports from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to a dozen congressional committees on the ongoing vetting processes. This would effectively all but eliminate refugee immigration from those two countries by creating significant and perhaps unclearable hurdles for the agencies in charge of overseeing admission to the United States. But McConnell is up against a possible Democratic filibuster, which senior Senate Democratic aides say they can sustain — and also the reality of time, which Congress is running out of.

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A Syrian refugee boy on Nov. 20 after arriving at the Greek island of Lesbos in a raft overcrowded with migrants and refugees. (Photo: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters)

When the Senate returns from its weeklong holiday recess, there will be only nine business days to clear legislation to avoid a government shutdown on Dec. 11, which likely will consume much, if not all, of the floor time before then. On Dec. 18, Congress is scheduled to break again for Christmas, but it could end the year sooner. If McConnell does bring up the bill in December, he also will have to take into account the interests of the four GOP Senate members who are running for president — Ted Cruz of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida — all of whom will have packed campaign schedules in the lead-up to February’s first primaries. At least two of them have proposed legislation regarding refugees they might push for votes on, either as amendments or stand-alone bills.

Paul, who was the first to formally introduce a refugee bill (and, consequently, the first to campaign on one), has often leveraged his relationship with McConnell to bring his bills to a vote as part of larger agreements, though he hasn’t outlined a strategy yet for his pending legislation. Paul has yet to clearly state his approach with his pending legislation, which would “suspend issuance of visas to nationals of countries with a high risk of terrorism” until the DHS could prove its systems to admit those immigrants are thorough and safe.

Cruz has floated the idea of a bill that would restrict refugees based on religion, allowing Christians in but screening out Muslims. The constitutionality of such a measure is questionable, and it would pose a political problem for GOP leaders, who are set on avoiding the most controversial votes in order to protect their vulnerable, in-cycle members, several of whom face tough re-election bids in purple and blue states.

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, Democrats plan to introduce legislation that would restrict those on the “no-fly list,” people deemed too dangerous to board commercial flights, from legally buying firearms in the United States. Currently, they are not banned from doing so by law, and more than 2,000 suspects on the terrorist watch list have legally purchased guns in the U.S. over the past decade, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The National Rifle Association has historically opposed the bill, which was first suggested by the George W. Bush administration and then introduced in 2009 by Republican Rep. Peter King of New York. But No. 2 Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York said Sunday that he plans on reintroducing the legislation after recess. Democrats have not been able to get enough Republican support to move any gun control measure in this Congress or the last, despite multiple attempts.

If none of these Democratic- or Republican-led bills get considered, the most likely outcome is a vote on a bipartisan measure from Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California to make changes to the visa waiver program, which allows visitors from certain, preapproved countries to stay in the United States for up to 90 days with little or no screening. The legislation would require more information from those travelers before they arrive, including fingerprints and photographs, in addition to requiring those visitors to have a passport with an electronic chip storing biometric data.

Feinstein said she and Flake plan to introduce the bill after Thanksgiving, noting in a statement that it is a “straightforward solution that can make a real difference.”

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A pro-refugee counterprotester during another group’s demonstration against U.S. acceptance of Syrian refugees at the Washington state capitol in Olympia. (Photo: David Ryder/Reuters)

Even Rand Paul, who is typically reluctant to agree to increased government monitoring, supports the bill in principle, noting a provision in his legislation that would impose a “Global Entry”-like program for all visa recipients.

“I do agree with those who say the visa waiver program is a problem. There are many French citizens who want to attack their government and attack us, and we have no program for screening them,” Paul said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I say they should all come in through global entry, sort of a frequent-flier program where you have to get a background check or they have to wait 30 days. Right now we have nothing in place, and I think we are at a great deal of risk from a variety of sources, refugees but also visa waiver nations.”

But considering the looming government shutdown deadline, holidays and presidential primaries, if Congress is going to make time to act on any of these measures, it has to be soon, before lawmakers’ schedules and aversion to action give way to an already intense 2016 campaign.