And GOP presidential contender Marco Rubio for the first time said the United States should no longer accept Syrian refugees because it’s impossible to know whether they have links to Islamic militants – an apparent shift from earlier statements in which he left open the prospects of migrants being admitted with proper vetting. “We are wondering where he is, and if he is frightened, and if he is eating”, the brother said. New government members vow that asylum applications will be scrutinized carefully and that they will be quick to reject any applicants who are even slightly suspicious. In September, officials in Germany said nearly a third of asylum seekers there claiming to be Syrian were not actually from Syria.
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The case of the mystery bomber has now ignited a political culture war across both sides of the Atlantic – one that revolves around whether it is migration or fear of migration that poses the greater peril.
President Barack Obama condemned that approach as the opposite of American values. “That’s not American, it’s not who we are”.
The three Democratic candidates for president of the US held their second debate on Saturday night in Des Moines, Iowa.
A Syrian passport found near the body of one of the attackers showed that its holder passed through Greece in October, raising concern that the attackers had entered Europe amid the wave of refugees fleeing that country’s four-year civil war. It was not clear whether the document was real or forged.
The officials say the second fugitive has not been identified.
“I advise him to surrender to the police”, his brother Mohamed Abdeslam, who was himself arrested and freed without charge in Belgium, told France’s BFMTV news channel.
Obama also said that people fleeing Syria are the ones more harmed by terrorism. The determination of governors to shield their residents from the hypothetical threat from 10,000 Syrian refugees would be better directed to impressing upon their congressional delegations the need to appropriate more money for the screening of visitors to the United States from countries that most closely resemble us in democratic values but who have proven to be an all too comfortable a haven for those whose malicious intentions threaten us all.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR Antonio Guterres conveyed his solidarity with the government and the people of France as he did with the Government of Lebanon following the recent Beirut attacks.
Syrians are already the most stringently screened of any group allowed to enter the country.
In the aftermath of the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday, every country in the West is being forced to reconsider its policies regarding the murderous jihadists of ISIS.
Antonio Guterres urged united European action to create more legal forms of entry so refugees can undergo proper screening and security checks.
Rubio on Sunday said that was impossible.
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“A review by the Majority Staff of the House Homeland Security Committee concludes that the [Obama] Administration’s proposal will have a limited impact on alleviating the overall crisis but could have serious ramifications for USA homeland security”, notes the panel in a report containing its findings titled, Syrian Refugee Flows: Security Risks and Counterterrorism Challenges.
