Carly Fiorina On the Syrian Refugee Crisis
The 2016 Presidential candidates from both parties are giving only sporadic attention to the refugee crisis currently gripping most of Europe. Hillary Clinton has been relatively quiet, aside from comments stipulating a need for the “entire world” to play a part. Democrat hopeful Martin O’Malley has been a bit more vocal, asking for the United States to take in 65,000 refugees:
“I support the call from humanitarian and refugee organizations for the United States to accept at least 65,000 Syrian refugees next year,” he said in a statement Friday. “If Germany — a country with one-fourth our population — can accept 800,000 refugees this year, certainly we — the nation of immigrants and refugees — can do more.”
On the Republican side, Carly Fiorina has been out front on the issue. She was asked about the subject on Face The Nation and didn’t hold back:
Fiorina brings up an important point. As sad as it is to see what is happening, national security risks are in play; while it may seem “uncaring” to cut off the flow of refugees into the United States, there is evidence that not all of the refugees are Syrian:
Iraqis formed the largest number of people descending from buses in the upscale Turkish seaside town of Bodrum on Sunday to attempt the short but perilous sea crossing to Greece, where two-thirds of those seeking asylum in Europe have arrived this year.A little more than half of the arrivals in Greece this year have been Syrians fleeing their country’s brutal and unending war — and by August the proportion of Syrians had climbed to 78 percent, according to the most recent figures provided by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.But the Syrians are being joined by Iraqis, as they, too, abandon hope that their country’s conflict will be resolved, said Mohammed Hamed, 33, an Iraqi policeman who left his wife and three children in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala three days ago.
Security measures need to remain in place because we cannot know for sure where those applying for refugee status are coming from:
A Pakistani identity card in the bushes, a Bangladeshi one in a cornfield. A torn Iraqi driver’s license bearing the photo of a man with a Saddam-style mustache, another one with a woman in a scarf displaying a shy smile.Documents scattered only yards from Serbia’s border with Hungary provide evidence that many of the people flooding Europe to escape war or poverty are scrapping their true nationalities and likely assuming new ones, just as they enter the European Union (EU).
Pressure is going to build on the United States to allow more refugees. Carly Fiorina has weighed in and pretty soon, all of the candidates are going to get hit with questions about it.
It will be interesting to see what positions they take.
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