Governors in more than a dozen U.S. states are refusing to accept the federal government’s plan of taking in Syrian refugees after discovering that one of the perpetrators in the Paris terror attack may have been a Syrian who entered Europe with the migrants in Greece.

According to NPR, the states are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin. All of those states, with the exception of New Hampshire, are Republican states.

The move comes as a way to protect the public safety of U.S. citizens after the tragedies that befell Paris and Beirut last week due to ISIS terrorist attacks.

“The first and foremost responsibility of government is to keep its people safe,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Monday. “We are working on measures to ensure … that Texans will be kept safe from those refugees.”

Abbott, along with the majority of governors from the states listed above, vowed that they would “suspend” the resettlement of Syrian refugees. NBC News reports that Idaho and North Carolina governors are opposed to the idea accepting Syrian refugees, but have not stated that they wouldn’t accept them.

“There may be those who will try to take advantage of the generosity of our country and the ability to move freely within our borders through this federal resettlement program, and we must ensure we are doing all we can to safeguard the security of Americans,” GOP Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin told USA Today.

Despite the opposition, legal analysts say that state governors probably have very little say in this matter. CNN reports that admitting refugees is a federal issue, not a state one, however, state governments can make the acceptance process more difficult.

American University law professor Stephen I. Vladeck put it this way to CNN: “Legally, states have no authority to do anything because the question of who should be allowed in this country is one that the Constitution commits to the federal government.”

“So a state can’t say it is legally objecting, but it can refuse to cooperate, which makes thing much more difficult.”

President Barack Obama argued that the refugees who would be admitted to the U.S. are people who have been affected the most by terrorism.

“The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism, they are the most vulnerable as a consequence of civil war and strife,” Obama said from the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey. “They are parents, they are children, they are orphans.”

“Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values,” he said. “Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both.”

Obama also criticized those opposing the admittance of the refugees based on their religious practices.

However, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a letter to the president stating: “Neither you nor any federal official can guarantee that Syrian refugees will not be part of any terroristic activity. As such, opening our door to them irresponsibly exposes our fellow Americans to unacceptable peril.”

However, many other government officials agree that the U.S. should not turn its back on people who are struggling to find a safe place among all the chaos. As as far as security concerns, Ben Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told NBC News that there will be a screening process for those entering the country.

“We have very expansive screening procedures for all Syrian refugees who have come to the United States,” Rhodes said. “There’s a very careful vetting process that includes our intelligence community, our national Counterterrorism Center [and] the Department of Homeland Security, so we can make sure that we’re carefully screening anybody who comes to the United States.”

But others argue that the government can’t screen everyone.

“There are a lot of holes, gaping holes,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in on “Meet the Press.”

“We don’t want to be complicit with a program that could bring terrorists into the United States.”

Despite the arguments on both sides, Fox News reports that the U.S. has already accepted 2,000 refugees since the 2011 Syrian civil war. President Obama will continue with his plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, unless Congress steps in.