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Washington, DC – U.S. Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) took to the House floor on Wednesday night to speak out about the grave threat associated with the U.N.-run refugee program.  Babin urged his colleagues to join him in supporting his legislation, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act (H.R. 3314), which immediately suspends the program to provide Congress time to fully assess the national security risks and investigate its financial burden on federal, state and local taxpayers.  To view video of Babin’s speech and read the full transcript, please click here.  Below are excerpts of his remarks:

To watch Babin's House floor speech, please click here.

"Mr. Speaker, I feel compelled to speak tonight on an issue that impacts the safety and security of this country. There is a grave threat to our national security that no one seems to want to talk about or address. We talk around it, allude to it, look the other way, or vainly hope that it will just go away. But sticking our heads in the sand will not make it go away. Instead the threat is growing and a lack of knowledge, foresight and action on our part could jeopardize the future of our children and our grandchildren.

"The threat that I am referring to is the Refugee Resettlement Act. Today, I want to share with my colleagues and the nation some very important aspects of the Refugee Resettlement program which I hope will result in serious debate and effective reevaluation of our current refugee resettlement policies.

"After events like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing, you would think America would have implemented a more rigorous screening process for allowing entry into the United States. On the contrary, and as the world becomes increasingly more dangerous, significant security gaps remain. President Obama has recently announced his plans to increase from 70,000 to 85,000 the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. in 2016. And, for 2017 he plans to bring in 100,000. Most of the increase is from Syria and western Iraq, a direct result of the conflict of ISIS and Obama’s own weak, disjointed foreign policy.

"In addition to the alarming national security concerns the resettlement program poses, there are significant costs that will be placed on the U.S. taxpayer and state and local governments. The numbers we have seen suggest a large economic burden on Americans, and we do not even know the full extent of all the costs.

"This is why I have introduced H.R. 3314 the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act of 2015.  My bill places an immediate moratorium on the U.S. refugee resettlement program until the Government Accountability Office conducts a study to determine the economic cost to the American taxpayer and Congress analyzes the risks to our national security.