Is The GOP Syrian Refugee Bill More Bureaucracy Or Real Safety?

Today in Lynn, U.S. Rep Seth Moulton spoke about his 'no' vote on the Syrian Refugee Bill:

I disagree with everybody who voted for the Republican bill. It's the strongest screening process for any traveler who comes to the United States, and the Republican bill does nothing to strengthen that process. It adds some layers of bureaucracy, but doesn't actually strengthen the security. I spoke out on a policy that I believe is essential to our national security. I'm not running for governor.

On NECN's Broadside program tonight, U.S. Representative Stephen Lynch answered questions about his 'yes' vote for the same bill--House Speaker Paul Ryan's Syrian Refugee Bill-- that Congressman Lynch voted in favor of, along with most Republicans and 46 Democrats, including one other Democrat from Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Bill Keating:

"Well, the the, the bill is only a four page bill so it's actually, I would encourage people to go out and read it uh, 4308 it's basically a bill that requires vetting of any refugees that we're going to take in from Syria or Iraq… because of the tactic that ISIL is using by, you know, putting militant terrorists into the legitimate refugee stream uh to, in one case France but, uh, we're fearful they'll do the same thing in the United States. So uh, what the bill does, it puts the Director of National Intelligence in a position of reviewing of those refugees that are cleared by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

And to be honest with you I have very very little confidence in the Dept of Homeland Security. Back, in last summer we found out there were 73 individuals with terrorist connections on the terrorist watch list, that were working for the Department of Homeland security. So they do very, very poor oversight and vetting.

And and when we we had the Inspector General do an audit of the airports— we picked 8 different airports, major airports in the United States — and we measured the success of of Department of Homeland Security in securing those airports, there was a 95% failure rate. So I have a… from, just from empirical evidence, of their lack of their performance, I'm very worried about them handling this vetting oversee.

So I think that, I think that, having another set of eyeballs on what they're doing is a very good thing. So having the Director of National Intelligence reviewing the vetting that their doing, is a wonderful thing. I just think they they're not up to speed ah, under normal circumstance, and now instead of a couple of hundred applications for refugee status, now they've got literally hundreds of thousands of applicants trying to come in. And we're just afraid there'll be that uh, that opportunity for ISIL to get a terrorist into our country with nefarious intent."