Half of America’s 50 governors have rejected President Barack Obama’s plan to relocate 10,000 Syrian refugees throughout the country.
Muslim American groups immediately accused them of “Islamophobia.” Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director of CAIR, told Al Jazeera.
We believe these governors are succumbing to fear and Islamophobia. This is really a non-issue because refugees and immigrants are checked thoroughly by the authorities before entering the US.
In Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel is not a position to take in refugees, but Opposition leader Yitzchak “Bujie” Herzog asserted that “Jews cannot be indifferent when hundreds of thousands of refugees are searching for a safe haven.” He did not refer to the risk of terror or the effect on increasing the non-Jewish population in Israel.
Several of the American governors, all of them Republican except for New Hampshire, said they would accept Christian Arabs, prompting President Obama to express his horror at what he called discrimination that is not “American.”
The President said in his speech on Friday night’s Islamic State (ISIS) massacres in Paris:
That is shameful. That is not American. That is not who we are. We don’t have religion tests for our compassion. Pope Francis visited…he didn’t just speak of Christians who are being persecuted…
I was very proud after 9/11 when President Bush] was adamant and declared that is not a war ion Islam….”
Governors’ comments indicated this is a war against terror and not Islam, and since almost all of the terrorists are Muslims, they are not taking any chances.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott wrote in an open letter to President Obama:
Neither you nor any federal official can guarantee that Syrian refugees will not be part of any terroristic activity.
Jeb Bush, one of the leading Republican candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, said that the United States should accept only “the Christians that are being slaughtered.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, also vying for the nomination, stated that there “is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror.”
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said:
There may be those who will try to take advantage of the generosity of our country and the ability to move freely within our borders through this federal resettlement program, and we must ensure we are doing all we can to safeguard the security of Americans.
Here is a list of states whose governors said they will not cooperate with federal efforts to disperse Syrian refugees:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho;
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine;
Massachusetts,Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey;
North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Only seven states have said they will accept refugees. Only one of them, Utah, has a Republican governor. The six states with Democratic governors are:
Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington.
Below is the video of President Obama’s horror that states reject Syrian Muslims refugees: