Voters Say National Security More Important Than Refugee Asylum
Migrants arrive at the main station in Munich, Germany September 5, 2015. (PHOTO: REUTERS/MICHAEL DALDER)
Secretary of State John Kerry announced over the weekend that the Obama administration will increase the number of worldwide refugees the U.S. accepts each year to 100,000 by 2017, up from 70,000 in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. However, according to a new survey, roughly half of American voters don’t want to take in any refugees, at all, let alone 100,000.
A Rasmussen Reports survey released Tuesday finds 49% of likely voters say no to any and all alleged Syrian refugees, while 20% said they would only support taking in 10,000 total. Still, 50% said they were opposed to the idea of allowing 10,000 to come to the U.S. in a poll conducted immediately after the president’s first announcement, and just 36% supported it.
The results are unsurprisingly when you consider 72% of voters feel that giving thousands of Syrian refugees asylum poses a national security risk to America, which includes 47% who are “Very Concerned.” On the flip side, just 27% don’t share this concern, but that includes just 10% who are “Not At All Concerned.” Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Republicans say they don’t want any refugees from the Middle East relocated to the U.S., which is a view shared by 48% of voters not affiliated with either party and even 40% of Democrats. In fact, few voters in the president’s party want any more than 25,000 new refugees allowed in.
Majorities of voters of all party affiliations are concerned about the national security threat that arises from bringing in Middle Eastern refugees, but Republicans have the strongest concern.
The former group clearly have reason to be concerned, as the Obama administration has flat-out admitted they have no capacity to vet the so-called refugees before they enter the country, and the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL) has repeatedly threatened to use the crisis as an opportunity to implement a trojan horse-like strategy to land terror cells and radical muslim fighters in the U.S. to carry out an open order for terror.
As of this week, just one 21-year old man from Morocco has been arrested on suspicion of being an Islamic State recruiter. However, the German authorities who apprehended the man at a refugee center near Stuttgart admitted he was only on the radar because he already had a European arrest warrant, which was issued by Spanish authorities. He was using a fake ID to pose as an asylum seeker, according to The New Observer, who reported this was the first time German authorities have arrested a terror suspect masquerading as an asylum seeker.
Yet, European Union ministers agreed Tuesday on a plan to resettle approximately 120,000 refugees from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa among member nations. American voters say “knock yourself out,” but want America to have nothing to do with the international scheme.
