More than half the nation’s governors oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states following the suspicion of ties to terrorism after the Paris Attacks.
State governors began announcing their rejection of the Syrian refugees after one of the Paris attackers reportedly posed as a refugee.
“I think a lot of governors are overacting,” Garrett Marshall, senior political science major, said. “There were only a couple of the Paris shooters that were posing as Syrian refugees. A lot of them were already in Paris or homegrown terrorists. … And I think that the fact that they’re displacing these people in such a terrible predicament just because someone was taking advantage of that predicament is a terrible message to send.”
Among the 31 states protesting admission of Syrian refugees into their states, all but one has Republican governors, according to CNN.
“I am a registered Republican; I don’t know if I whole-heartedly agree, but I do know where they’re coming from,” Marshall said. “A lot of them will probably take an economic stance on it and say that these refugees will drag down the economies that they’re in. And that’s true, probably – they’re refugees, they probably won’t have many skills and we will be housing them, basically, as free welfare citizens.”
Marshall said while he understands the economic point to the objections, he disagrees with the screening process governors might use for refugees.
“I do think that one thing governors are doing that I whole-heartedly disagree with – whatever political view you are – is background checks and interviews with these refugees, trying to see whether or not they have terrorist connections,” Marshall said. “A lot of that is going to be racial profiling, which is going to be horrendous because they’re going to base them solely on if they’re Muslim or not and then review them from there. So, I think the political-ness of this whole situation is going to get out of hand, especially if we start doing interviews for refugees.”
In September, the Obama administration announced that 10,000 Syrians would be allowed entry next year. Even in light of the recent events, states don’t have a choice in the matter under the Refugee Act of 1980.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump said that he would close mosques in the United States to prevent further terrorist efforts. Marshall said this comment was inappropriate and ignorant.
“That is incredibly ignorant of a religion,” Marshall said. “No one thinks that the KKK represents Christianity as a whole, so no one should think that ISIS – a radical right-wing group – represents Islam as a whole.”
According to New York Times, more than 250,000 people have died since the violence broke out in Syria in 2011, and at least 11 million people in the country of 22 million have fled their homes. Syrians are now the world’s largest refugee population, according to the United Nations.
Marshall said the younger generation of voters has the ability to help the Syrian refugees in their time of need.
“I encourage people to follow this closely and spread their opinion because I think the younger generation of voters needs to say their opinion,” Marshall said. “I think a lot of the times we are the bleeding hearts, we feel for these Syrian refugees, whereas some of our parents and grandparents don’t as much. I think that these refugees might get the shaft if we don’t speak up and do something.”
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