A Syrian refugee family, after waiting for three years in Jordan to be approved to come to the United States, was finally set to land in Indianapolis on Wednesday.

Instead, after Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana said on Monday that he would no longer accept Syrian refugees in his state, the family of three will be starting their new life in New Haven, Connecticut.

Pence is one of 26 governors who have objected to the placement of Syrian refugees in their states in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. Their stance has the agencies that handle resettlements for the U.S. government scrambling to place families. The Syrian family was the first to be redirected.

Republican governors such as Pence, Republican presidential candidates, the Democratic governor of New Hampshire and other lawmakers have singled out Syrian refugees as a security risk after one suspect killed in the Paris attacks was found with a Syrian passport. As the Obama administration hoped to convince governors that the refugee program already includes extensive vetting and security measures, aid workers from the Midwest to the Northeast improvised.

On Tuesday morning, the head of Indiana’s Division of Family Resources sent a letter to Carleen Miller, the executive director of Exodus Refugee Immigration in Indianapolis, informing her that the state was seeking to have the arrival of the Syrian family due this week and all future Syrian arrivals “suspended or redirected to another state that is willing to accept Syrian placements.”

Miller said having to find the family a new home was “one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in the eight years I’m here.”

“My role is to create a welcoming environment here in our state that gives a safe haven to refugees,” Miller added. “That we can’t be that because our state is not welcoming all is really painful.”

She turned to Episcopal Migration Ministries, which placed a call to Chris George, the executive director of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services in New Haven, which also coordinates resettlement operations there with Church World Service.

George said he was surprised by the request, which he accepted without hesitation because the family’s arrival was imminent.

“By diverting this family, we don’t want to set a precedent,” George said. “The last thing a refugee agency wants to do is give in to this un-American political and knee-jerk reaction.”

Since Oct. 1, 2014, 1,869 Syrian refugees have been settled in the United States. President Barack Obama said in September that the United States would accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the coming year. But things are off to a slow start: 187 Syrians arrived in the month of October, sprinkled across just 17 states.

The governors of New York and Connecticut, both Democrats, have emphatically said Syrian refugees are welcome, even though Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican running for president, has said they are not.

Mahmoud Mahmoud, the field director of the Jersey City office for Church World Service, one of two aid agencies resettling Syrians in the New York metropolitan area, said that despite Christie’s declaration that New Jersey should not take Syrian refugees, “it’s business as usual.”

“This week we’re expecting refugees from Cuba, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.” Mahmoud said. His office had no Syrians scheduled to arrive in New Jersey until the end of the month.

In a briefing with reporters, senior administration officials described layers of background checks all refugees must pass, in a process that currently stretches from 18 months to two years — if not longer.

The United Nations refugee agency initially selects people who might qualify for resettlement in the United States. They then are interviewed overseas by officers of the Department of Homeland Security. Fingerprints and personal histories are checked against consular watch lists and against databases in the intelligence agencies and at the National Counterterrorism Center, the Homeland Security Department, the FBI and the Defense Department, the officials said.

Recently the Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for final approvals, added another check for Syrian refugees, passing them through its fraud detection unit. Currently about half of applications by all refugees are rejected, the officials said.

After the extensive vetting abroad, nine national aid agencies, together with the State Department, conduct an allocation meeting every Wednesday. This Wednesday, there are six Syrian families on the docket, said Mia Witte, the project coordinator for pre-arrival services at Church World Service, for a total of 38 people due to arrive in the coming weeks.

Several national aid agencies said it would present a logistical nightmare if they were forced to reshuffle Syrian refugees only to states that were hospitable.

“It’s not impossible, but it’s far from ideal,” said Melanie Nezer, who is the chairwoman of Refugee Council USA, which oversees resettlement organizations, and also a vice president of policy at HIAS, one of the nine agencies placing refugees. “There is infrastructure set up all over the country. Our agencies are in communities where they are in consultations with community organizations, local and state governments and schools.”

The family now heading to Connecticut on Wednesday has been exiled from Homs, Syria, since 2011. The father, George said, ran a used clothes store. The couple’s son is 4 years old.

They will join a New Haven community where 22 Syrians have already settled over the past year.

In Syria, George said, they were shop owners, bus drivers, sweet shop owners. “They are tough blue-collar salt-of-the-earth types who are eager to work,” he said.

Julia Preston contributed reporting.