A South Carolina lawmaker criticized Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley for her stance on the “Obama refugee resettlement program” during her tenure as governor.
“I was on the county council almost 10 years ago when we had to tell Nikki Haley, by resolution, to stop supporting Obama's refugee resettlement program,” said South Carolina state Rep. Stewart Jones. a Republican, in a clip originally shared by the MAGA account War Room on X earlier this month and posted Monday by Team Trump.
Fox News Digital reached out to Haley's campaign for comment Monday but did not immediately hear back.
In November 2015, Haley, then governor of South Carolina, specifically asked the State Department not to resettle Syrian refugees in the Palmetto State amid growing concern from local lawmakers following a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks carried held in Paris, France. and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis, which killed 130 people.
But Jones, who at the time served on the Laurens County Council, told Fox News Digital that in early 2015, Haley had ignored a number of state provisions by continuing to support the Obama-era resettlement program, prompting a massive push by state legislators. in September and October asking the governor to change course before the Paris attacks.
“Honestly, Nikki is more flip flops than beach,” said Jones, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives in South Carolina's 3rd Congressional District. “That's basically how I see it. I mean, she eventually backed down, but she still supported him in a different way.”
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“I don't think we know how many people were actually coming in, especially now. I mean, now, I would say with our southern border issue, you know, being wide open, we don't have an idea of how many people are coming into this country, and there are estimates and so on,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “It's a very, very important issue. And I think Nikki Haley would be very disruptive. It would harm the situation even more. And we have, we have to secure the border.”
Nikki Haley hosted a rally in Conway on Jan. 28, 2024, as part of her tour of the Palmetto State ahead of Saturday's South Carolina primary. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Then-President Obama's administration had promised to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees over a 12-month period at the time, according to WYFF, but South Carolina lawmakers expressed concerns to Haley about the vetting process for refugees from conflict zones. , citing how French authorities said a Syrian passport was found near one of the attackers, and the Paris prosecutor's office said the fingerprints of one of the attackers matched those of someone who passed through Greece just a month earlier.
Haley said she still supported groups such as Lutheran Services of the Carolinas and the World Relief Organization that brought refugees to South Carolina from other parts of the world, including areas such as the Congo, Burma, Ukraine and Iraq, acknowledging in a letter to the then Secretary of State John Kerry that these immigrants are often fleeing religious persecution.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley holds a news conference for the Republican Governors Association at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 23, 2015. The Republican and Democratic governors met with President Barack Obama at the White House during the association's winter meeting. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“As Governor, my first and foremost duty is to ensure the safety of the citizens of South Carolina. We are a state that has proudly welcomed refugees from around the world as part of the United States Refugee Resettlement Program… While “I agree that the United States should try to help people in such dire situations, it is precisely because of the situation in Syria that makes their admission into the United States a potential threat to our national security,” he wrote to Kerry at the time: “For that reason, I ask that you honor my request and not resettle any Syrian refugees in South Carolina.”
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Haley also mentioned how two interpreters who worked with her husband in Afghanistan were brought over through the US resettlement program under Obama.
Protesters at the South Carolina Chapel during a rally in response to the Trump administration's executive order blocking the entry of refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries on January 31, 2017. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
“These are people who have protected our troops. These are people who are being persecuted for being Christians. These are people who are being hurt because of their political beliefs. These are people who we took in because they weren't safe where they were,” Haley said. at the time, according to WIS-TV.
Haley will compete against former President Trump in the South Carolina Republican primary on February 24.
The Obama administration pledged in 2016 to bring in more than 110,000 refugees from around the world in that fiscal year, an issue that sparked heated debate during the presidential election cycle, with Trump and others expressing concern that there could be terrorists among them.
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Trump has the backing of most Republican state and federal elected officials in South Carolina in the 2024 race even though Haley served as governor from 2011 to 2017.
Trump chose Haley to serve in his administration as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
