Syrian Refugees Grateful For New Opportunity In Chicago

(CBS) -- In a conference call with 34 governors, including Indiana Governor Mike Pense and senior officials for Governor Rauner, White House officials reassured them that refugees from Syria undergo the most rigorous screening and security.

More than half of the country's governors oppose letting in Syrian refugees. CBS 2's Dana Kozlov spoke to a Syrian refugee family in Chicago, who thanks America for their new home.

Fatima Idris' two-year-old son Osamah spent the afternoon sleeping on his family's Rogers Park couch, in a place they've called home for the past ten months.

"I put in my mind that now, America is my home," she said. "Nobody forgets his home, Syria."

Idris, her husband Fadi Omarin and now nine-year-old son Abdel El Hamid left Syria a year after the war there began and after their house was bombed over their heads and seeing women and children killed.

After three years as refugees in Lebanon and Osamah's birth, they learned America would take them in. The Muslim family was left with nothing and like so many others, arrived with nothing.

"I told myself maybe they will not like us, maybe they will not because we put us (gestures to scarf)."

But the family of four says everyone has been kind and they're grateful to be here. But there are also tears. Idris says it makes her sad to hear some people are afraid of Syrians.

"The Syrian family escaped from war," she said. "Why would they make the war? No. I don't think that."

Fatima Idris says the terrorist organization, ISIS, did not situate in Syria until after they fled the war-ravaged country. But she says she hates that violence, too, stressing all Syrian people should not be judged on the actions of only a few.