“They want to go back home, obviously”, Carson told ABC’s “This Week” from Amman, Jordan’s capitol.
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After touring Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson suggested that camps should serve as a long-term solution for millions, while other refugees could be absorbed by Middle Eastern countries.
Carson made the Middle East trip amid questions about his foreign policy experience and fitness to be commander in chief.
At a news conference between campaign events in Mobile, Carson said it is natural for Americans to be fearful of a terror strike at home.
“I had an opportunity to talk with numerous Syrians, and that was very eye-opening, asking them what is their desire”, Ben Carson told CBS. But you can see there are a lot of individual modules that they have created for their families, they’re in the process of trying to get electricity to all of them, getting pluming to all of them, and they have taken in millions of people. The UN estimates that 86% of Jordan’s Syrian refugees live below the country’s poverty line, and that estimate came before 229,000 of those outside the camps lost their food aid in September thanks to the billions of dollars in funding gaps being suffered by struggling aid agencies. And the answer that was really overwhelming was that they can support the efforts that are already in place by the Jordanians and others in terms of these refugee camps.
“They want to go back to their lives”.
It is clear that this is a discussion we, as a nation, need to have, but we need to enter this debate armed with as many facts as we can amass, while at the same time avoiding the inflammatory rhetoric of grandstanding politicians trying desperately to grab a soundbite in the 24-hour news cycle.
“If there’s a rabid dog running around your neighbourhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog. We can do our part to help this crisis without bringing 10-25,000 refugees to the United States”.
He also expressed his belief that the United States could, and should, do more to help those who are on the front lines of this humanitarian disaster. “That’s what we spent on Halloween candy” previous year, Carson said. But I do know that the ISIS terrorists have said that if we bring refugees, that they would infiltrate them.
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Few details of Carson’s three-day trip were released by his campaign, which announced the visit at the last minute. “We want to actually solve the problem”. It’s about these individuals and what’s happening to them and it’s also about the United States of America and the people of our country and the leadership that these people deserve. They have complained that they are carrying an unfair burden while the worldwide community’s support has fallen short.
