It is not clear that any of the Islamic State terrorists who attacked Paris last week was a Syrian refugee. But early reports that one attacker entered Europe on a refugee boat to Greece, with a Syrian passport (now believed to be fake), have prompted an immediate and fierce backlash from Republicans across the U.S.
Governors take a stand
Twenty-nine Republican governors have declared this week that their states will not accept Syrian refugees. The list includes the leaders of not only deeply conservative states like Idaho and Alabama but also Massachusetts, Maryland and even Michigan, which already has a large Syrian population.
“Our first priority is protecting the safety of our residents,” Michigan Gov. Rick Snydersaid.
Governors don’t actually have the power to decide who moves to their states once accepted into the country by the federal government. But they can deny support to programs that help refugees survive and integrate, and they can try to pressure Washington to direct refugees somewhere else.
A Democratic governor, too
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, gave Republicans political cover Monday when she called for the federal government to “halt acceptance of refugees from Syria” until U.S. security officials can ensure the refugees are being sufficiently vetted.
No other Democratic governor has publicly joined the anti-refugee side. Hassan, running for the U.S. Senate next year, took an even firmer stance than the one held by most of the Republican governors, who are generally not asking Washington to abandon the whole national program.
The race for the Louisiana governorship was wild well before the Paris attacks. The Democratic candidate, John Bel Edwards, released a TV ad in early November accusing Republican David Vitter, who was linked to a 2007 prostitution scandal, of choosing “prostitutes over patriots.”
Vitter struck back Monday with an ad that begins with the boom of a Paris suicide bombing. “One of the Paris ISIS terrorists entered France posing as a Syrian refugee,” the narrator intones. “Now Obama’s sending Syrian refugees to Louisiana…John Bel Edwards has pledged to work with Obama.”
Presidential rivals talk tough
Keenly aware of anti-Islam and anti-immigrant sentiment among segments of the conservative base, Republican presidential candidates are competing to sound most unsympathetic to the refugees. Ted Cruz told CNN he would introduce a bill to bar entry to all Syrian Muslims. (Christians would still be allowed.) Chris Christie, prodded by a conservative radio host, said he would not even accept Syrian orphans under the age of 5.
Jeb Bush won praise from some moderates for saying Tuesday morning that “the answer to this is not to ban people from coming.” By early afternoon, his campaign was confusingly “clarifying”: Bush doesn’t want to ban Syrians, one said, but he wants to keep them out.
Ryan asks for a break
The new Speaker of the House, Republican Paul Ryan, called Tuesday for a “pause” in the intake of Syrian refugees. “This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry,” Ryan said. He wants the government “to better guarantee that members of ISIS are not infiltrating themselves among the refugee population.”
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said he would put forward a bill to suspend the resettlement program. And at least one Republican senator he wanted to insert a proposal to curtail the refugee program into an important upcoming spending bill, raising the prospect of a government shutdown over the issue.
The backlash to the backlash
President Barack Obama, who has himself faced criticism for refusing to accept a larger number of Syrians, said it is “shameful” to suggest a religious test for refugees. “A new low,” Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton agreed on Twitter. And Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who is Jewish, invoked the story of the St. Louis, the boat filled with Jewish refugees from Germany that was turned away by the U.S. (and Canada) in 1939.
“We should rally around the president’s call for compassion for a suffering population that wants nothing more than a safe place to rebuild their lives from the rubble of war,” Markell wrote.(Daniel Dale)
Link: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/11/17/the-backlash-against-syrian-refugees-sweeps-us-politics.html
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