To score cheap political points after the terrorist attacks in Paris by the Islamic State, Republicans across the country, from governors to those in Congress to several running for president, are trying to gin up fears against refugees trying to get into America to escape oppression elsewhere.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder started the ball rolling by saying he didn’t want any Syrian refugees in Michigan — a state with a large population from the Middle East in the Detroit suburbs — because he “only wants answers” about the refugees coming here. Yet in an interview on NPR, he couldn’t name any issues or problems with the current screening process of refugees, a process that can take as long as three years.
Sensing a political opportunity, other GOP governors couldn’t race each other to the microphones fast enough to say that they, too, didn’t want refugees. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is also running for president, said he wouldn’t even take a 5-year-old orphan.