“Apparently they are scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America”, he said later.
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“When you see Christians being beheaded and crucified by ISIS trying to engage in genocide, we ought to be a beacon of hope and a safe haven for the Christians that are fleeing that persecution”, Cruz said at a campaign stop in Sun City, SC on Monday.
While Obama didn’t name names, it was clear who he was referring to.
Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Sen.
But bipartisan support for a general “pause” on Syrian refugees resettling in the USA continues to grow in both the House and Senate-and in both parties. “When I hear political leaders suggesting that there should be a religious test for admitting which person fleeing which country”, Obama said at the G20 press conference in Turkey, “when a few of these folks themselves come from other countries, that’s shameful”.
Low-income refugee families with children may be eligible for temporary assistance for needy families, a welfare program in which state rules govern eligibility and the amount of money families receive, for up to five years.
Of course there are legitimate security concerns, and we can’t let people enter the country from Syria – or anywhere else – without first vetting them.
Clearly, then, Syrian Christians and Syrian Sunnis are not similarly situated refugees.
But the crisis of Syrian refugees is testing American politicians, given the choice between yielding to fears of importing terrorists or honoring the traditional US welcoming role. That’s not American. That’s not who we are.
Suddenly, social media is full of calls to help our own veterans and homeless residents – a rationale for rejecting Syrian refugees.
In context, Cruz’s school-yard taunts concluded with the senator calling for a few kind of one-on-one debate with the president.
“Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values”, Obama said. “While I disagree that accepting Christian refugees is in the long-term security interest of the United States and long-term stability interest of the Middle East, the intent of those who do should never be vilified”. The screening process can take up to two years.
Cruz argued that the US can not effectively vet the refugees to determine whether they are affiliated with the Islamic State. They have settled in Arizona, Arkansas and California.
“Sadly, it appears that at least one of the terrorists who committed these attacks in Paris came as a refugee in Syria”, he said.
Immigration is an issue where the federal government has treated the views of most Americans-almost all Americans, in fact-with contempt.
“If you were Muslim from Syria, you can get into this country … if you were a Christian from Syria it was nearly impossible to get in and yet the Christians were having their heads cut off”, Trump told a crowd Wednesday in Worcester, Mass. “It’s the most unfair thing, this is during the Obama administration … what’s wrong with us?”
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The United States has been accepting refugees since World War II, when 250,000 of them entered.
