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Fusion Center at State Police HQ would monitor refugees

8 years 4 months 1 week ago Tuesday, November 17 2015 Nov 17, 2015 November 17, 2015 8:48 AM November 17, 2015 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Hours after discussing frustrations over how the federal government is handling Syrian refugees being placed in Louisiana and other states, the chief of the State Police showed off the Fusion Center where refugees would be monitored.

"There's no local vetting," Col. Mike Edmonson said at the center located on the grounds of State Police headquarters Monday.

"As the father of four kids, that concerns me. We have information that is not properly vetted. As the head of the State Police, knowing the relationship and the sharing of information we have, especially with the FBI, I'm confident that there would be something there that we would receive - whether its from Catholic Charities or the FBI - and that would be shared with members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force," he said in an interview with WBRZ reporter Brett Buffington.

Catholic Charities organizes settlement for refugees in Louisiana.

"We receive them, we welcome them into our community and help them resettle," Executive Director of Catholic Charities, Chad Aguillard, said in an interview earlier Monday.

While the Fusion Center has found no threat toward Louisiana related to the attacks in Paris last week or the refugee plans, Edmonson said he would just like to know everything available.

"We were talking with the FBI, we were sharing information with the local office here in Baton Rouge, and in New Orleans," he said as he explained the organizational structure of how the Fusion Center monitors various situations and events.

Monday, Governor Bobby Jindal issued an executive order preventing the resettlement of Syrian refugees into Louisiana. The order prohibits state resources from being used for the refugees. However, that order does not apply to nonprofits and has no effect on the organization that helps refugees.

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Follow the publisher of this post on Twitter: @treyschmaltz

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