House unlikely to override Obama veto of refugee bill, says Hoyer

[December 02, 2015]  By Patricia Zengerle
 
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Representative Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, said on Tuesday there would not be enough votes in the chamber to override President Barack Obama's promised veto of a bill tightening the clearance process for refugees from Syria.

The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill passed by the House of Representatives on Nov. 19. Some lawmakers said they now expect Republican congressional leaders will include it in a spending bill that must become law by Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown.

Hoyer said it would pose a problem for Democrats if such a provision were included in the government-wide spending bill, raising the specter of a fight that could stall the vital spending measure.

When the refugee bill passed the House, 47 of Obama's fellow Democrats broke with the White House and backed it.

"While there were substantial votes for that... if that were returned to the House, there would not be the votes to override the president's veto," Hoyer told a news conference.

To get the two-thirds majority of House votes needed to override a presidential veto, about 43 Democrats and all 246 Republicans in the House would have to vote against Obama.

Many Republican lawmakers opposed Obama's plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees even before the attacks in Paris last month, but the killing of 130 people in the French capital intensified many Americans' fears that fighters from the Islamic State group could hide among those fleeing their country's nearly five-year-long civil war.

The current process for screening Syrian refugees takes 18 to 24 months. Opponents of the bill argue that it would make more sense to focus on other security concerns, such as the visa waiver program, which allows people from 38 countries to enter the United States with no screening at all.

The White House announced changes to the visa waiver program on Monday. Several lawmakers are also working on legislation to address it.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Susan Heavey and Bill Rigby)

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