Texas officials have threatened to withdraw from a federal refugee resettlement program as President Barack Obama announced plans to increase the number of resettlements in the US by 2017.

Citing safety concerns, Texas Gov Greg Abbott said the Office of Refugee Resettlement must “unconditionally approve” the state’s plan to exhaustively screen refugees hoping to enter the US and only accept people who “are fully vetted and do not present a security threat.”

“Despite multiple requests by the state of Texas, the federal government lacks the capability or the will to distinguish the dangerous from the harmless, and Texas will not be an accomplice to such dereliction of duty to the American people,” Mr Abbott said.

Mr Abbott will follow the lead of Kansas and New Jersey and opt out of the funding if the US government does not meet his criteria by 30 September.

Conservative leaders have continuously attempted to block the migration of Syrian refugees since the aftermath of the November attacks in Paris that claimed the lives of 130 people.

The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Show all 8 1 /8 The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Basheer Basheer, a 3-year-old Syrian boy, lying on his father leg, lives with his family in a rent-free house as part of NRC's shelter programme in the village of Bair-Ras, in Irbid governorate, northern Jordan. Photo 11 October 2015 NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Hisham Mustafa has fled from Aleppo, and is currently at Idomeni in Greece. Here he is playing with his nephew Hisham, 3 NRC/Tiril Skarstein The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Ahmaydi Bouchra Little Ahmaydi, 3, and her family of eight fled from fighting in Mali to the Goudebo camp in Burkina Faso in 2013. Neither of her two older sisters went to school in Mali. The whole family lives in a tent that is approx. 7m x 6m. The family bed is stored outside to make space inside the shelter during day time. In the evenings, they carry the bed back in. NRC/Ingrid Prestetun The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Farah Farah, 4, lives with her family in Irbid in a rent-free apartment. She stays home with her mother as her four sisters and three brothers leave for the day to their various schools. Photo 11t October 2015 NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Batane Yacouba Batane Yacouba, 4, lives with his two older sisters and his mother in the Goudebo camp in Burkina Faso. A Tuareg family, they were forced to flee Mali fearing for their lives. Their father is dead NRC/Ingrid Prestetun The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Hassan Syrian boy Redor, 12, plays with Hassan, 3, after arriving at the port in Chios, Greece NRC/Tiril Skarstein The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Fatin Fatin, 4, and her family fled Syria to Irbid, northern Jordan. Her father has issued a birth certificate for her, in order for her to have access to health centres. NRC/Hussein Amri The other Alan Kurdis: Refugee children who survived the journey Born a refugee Alice Digama (24) sits on the tent floor with her two-week-old baby. Her son is one of many children born a refugee. Alice was heavily pregnant when she escaped South Sudan and crossed the border into Uganda, after her husband left her for another wife NRC/Sofi Lundin

The halt to Syrian refugees is a familiar rallying cry for the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has previously called for an outright ban to Muslims entering the country.

Mr Trump recently linked the bombings in New York and New Jersey to an apparent weakness in the immigration vetting system.

“You can’t have vetting if you don’t look at ideology,” Mr Trump said at a campaign event in Fort Myers, Florida. “Hillary Clinton refuses to consider an applicant’s worldview and thus their likelihood of being recruited into the terror cause at some later date, which is going to happen in many, many cases.”

Refugee crisis: Stranded refugees face deteriorating conditions in Greece camps

Echoing the message, Mr Trump’s eldest son and audacious surrogate, Donald Trump Jr, sparked controversy with a tweet on Monday that likened Syrian refugees to a bowl of Skittles candy.

“If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful?” the caption, accompanied with an image of a bowl holding the candy, read. “That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

The suspect charged in the series of explosions and attempted detonations in the two states, 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, is a naturalised US citizen who was born in Afghanistan. He came to the US in 1995 when his family was granted asylum – which requires a different process than admitting refugees.

Refugees currently go through an admitting process through the State Department that can take up to two years, until they are placed in a specific city and receive assistance finding a home, work, schools for their children, and learning English from area nonprofits.

Should Texas withdraw from the federal refugee resettlement program, the federal government can allocate funding directly to a nonprofit organisation per the US Refugee Act of 1980 – which allows the US to grant a non-state organisation the authority disburse federal refugee funding.