Amid protests, some Syrian refugees find a home in Texas

On a sofa in their small apartment, Bashar al Jaddou's three children climb on his lap and speak in quick, soft Arabic as a photographer takes their picture. They smile and mug for the camera.
The 30-year-old al Jaddou decided to leave Syria in 2012 after his family's home in Homs was bombed and there was nowhere safe left to live. Five months after arriving in Dallas, he works at a local Wal-Mart and takes weekly trips to parks with his wife and children.
"We moved here because of our kids," he said through a translator. "We want a good future for them."

In the last five years, Texas has taken in more refugees than any other state, including 243 Syrians, according to the U.S. State Department. Two more families from Syria were to arrive in Dallas in the next 10 days, even as Texas continued to oppose their arrival.
After the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, which were linked to the Islamic State group, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican governors said they didn't want new Syrian refugees. But Texas has fought the hardest of any state, threatening one refugee aid group, the International Rescue Committee, with loss of funding and suing that organization as well as the US government on Wednesday.

The IRC said earlier this week that it was "important not to conflate terrorists with the Syrian refugees who are seeking sanctuary in the United States," and vowed to continue its work.

Syrians, like all refugees, undergo rigorous screening, the federal government has said, and states lack the legal authority to block funding for such aid groups. In the weeks since the Paris attacks, about 200 Syrian refugees have settled in the U.S. Including in states whose governors resisted, according to the State Department.
Refugees in Texas have found a mixed reception - some residents have warmly welcomed them even as a series of incidents over the last year suggest growing anti-Muslim and anti-Syrian sentiment.

Two weeks ago, anti-Islam protesters carrying long guns marched outside a suburban Dallas mosque, and the protest organizer later posted the names and addresses of Muslims and "Muslim sympathizers" on Facebook. The organizer, David Wright, said in a Facebook interview that people who are afraid to oppose Islam publicly are part of a "fantasy that will come crashing down around them," and that "the Syrian refugees are part of that strategy."
The mosque protest in Irving followed the highly publicized case of a Muslim teenager, Ahmed Mohamed, who was arrested in the same town after bringing a homemade clock to school that a teacher feared was a bomb. He and his family moved out of Texas, and his attorneys have threatened to sue the city and school district.