Democrats: Halting Syrian refugee plan would embolden ISIS
As the House prepares to vote on a bill to halt the Syrian refugee plan Thursday, some Democrats are arguing that rejecting Syrian refugees from the U.S. actually emboldens the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"If we allow them to scare us into closing our doors, they will use that to say to the refugees, 'See, we told you,'" Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota, said about ISIS on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" Wednesday. "They will use that message to recruit and they will use that message to advance their cause. I don't believe we should do that."
The House is scheduled to vote on a bill Thursday that Republicans say would "pause" the Obama administration's plan to take in at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year. The bill's language doesn't explicitly halt the plan, but it would force administration officials to certify the completion of background checks for every incoming refugee.
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky had called for the pause following the Paris terrorist attacks. At least one of the eight terrorists responsible is believed to have been from Syria, according to authorities.
"This is despicable and cowardly and precisely the kind of reaction ISIS wanted. ISIS could not have written a better script," Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, said on the House floor. "The free people of the world are turning their backs on people seeking safety and freedom. When we sent Jews back to Germany and when we sent Japanese to internment camps, we regretted it, and we will regret this as well."
Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, wrote in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune that halting the administration's plan, which President Obama is standing by, "poses a threat to national security."
"They are sending a signal that innocent victims fleeing the brutality of the Syrian civil war are not welcome in the United States, which plays right into our enemy's hands," Duckworth wrote, adding that it "empowers and emboldens radicals."
It was a point former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright agreed with in an op-ed for Time magazine. Instead of halting the plan, "[W]e need to clarify that the real choice is between those who think it is OK to murder innocent people and those who think it is wrong," wrote Albright, who was a refugee from Czechoslovakia.
Many Democrats defending President Obama's plan are also making the case that the government's vetting process is rigorous. Refugees must go through background checks, national security vetting, biometric identifiers and interviews, which they say takes an average of 18 to 24 months.
But even as many of them continue to defend the plan, a Bloomberg survey released Wednesday found a majority of people in the U.S. oppose resettling Syrian refugees.
The poll found 53 percent said the plan should be halted, 28 percent said it should continue and 11 percent said it should be limited to Syrian Christians.
