State Department sued over refugee plan

A conservative legal watchdog is suing the State Department to obtain documents about its work with aid organizations to resettle refugees in the United States.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit, months after failing to obtain the records through a Freedom of Information Act request.

{mosads}In a statement, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that the administration’s failure to respond to its request is proof “that the Obama administration has something to hide about refugees, terrorism, and national security.”

“The Obama administration doesn’t want Americans to know about how it places refugees from terrorist states in their local communities,” Fitton said.

In particular, the conservative group is seeking to obtain agreements between the State Department and the nine voluntary organizations that help to place refugees within the U.S.

Judicial Watch has also asked for transcripts of hearings about services for the refugees with officials from the State Department, the Department of Health and Human Services and the aid organizations, as well as data about refugees resettled in the U.S. from 2013 to 2015.

Judicial Watch has long been a legal thorn in the Obama administration’s side.

In recent months, it has filed repeated lawsuits to make public reams of information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, helping to keep the issue in the news as the Democratic presidential front-runner moves ahead with her campaign.

Conservatives have grown critical of the Obama administration’s plans to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the U.S. over the next year, following indications that some of the men who killed 130 people in Paris last month had entered France disguised as refugees. Dozens of states have rejected the plans, and told the administration not to resettle the refugees within their limits.

Texas sued the federal government over the issue, though a federal judge has rejected its efforts to halt the migrants from arriving.