Even though President Barack Obama has said the United States will accept up to 10,000 individuals fleeing the Syrian civil war, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and more than two dozen governors -- mostly Republicans -- do not want to welcome these refugees in their respective states.

Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana and Bruce Rauner of Illinois have all announced that their states would "suspend" the resettlement of Syrian refugees. Abbott also told Obama in a letter, "A Syrian 'refugee' appears to have been part of the Paris terror attack [on Nov. 13]," NBC News reported.

"The first and foremost responsibility of government is to keep its people safe," the Texas governor said on Monday. "We are working on measures to ensure ... that Texans will be kept safe from those refugees."

In the wake of the Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 individuals, the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin have similarly promised to halt a possible influx of refugees.

"I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm's way," Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced on Monday, according to Yahoo News.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., echoed the governors' concerns and called for a "pause" in the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States, Bloomberg noted.

"This is a moment where it is better to be safe than sorry," he said. The government needs "to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population."

It is not clear, meanwhile, if governors have the authority to prevent refugee resettlement, and "multiple experts" said they were standing on shaky legal ground. Lavinia Limon, the former director of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement under President Bill Clinton, said they were misreading the Constitution.

"It's really a question of fundamental freedoms," Limon said. "If you're legally residing in the United States, you have the right to move wherever you wish to. We could resettle a refugee in New York City today, and tomorrow they could decide to move to Dallas."

Without referring to the legal argument, Obama, meanwhile, chided the governors for their refusal to extend a hand to the refugees.

"That's shameful," the president said. "That's not American, it's not who we are."