https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/16/obama-calls-idea-of-screening-syrian-refugees-based-on-religion-shameful-defends-white-house-strategy/
Obama calls idea of screening Syrian refugees based on religion ‘shameful,’ Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkey, on Monday, President Obama said his approach to countering the so-called Islamic State "is the strategy that ultimately is going to work" but that the terrorist network still can exact serious damage worldwide.
"But understand that one of the challenges we have in this situation is that if you have a handful of people who don't mind dying, they can kill a lot of people," Obama said in a news conference after the conclusion of the Group of 20 summit there. "That’s one of the challenges of terrorism. It's not their sophistication or the particular weaponry that they possess, but it is the ideology they carry with them and their willingness to die."
Obama also pointedly addressed the issue of whether the United States and other countries should continue to accept refugees, given the fact that one of the participants in the Paris plot may have come in with Syrian migrants. He said the United States would continue to accept more refugees from Syria and elsewhere, though "only after subjecting them to rigorous screening and security checks."
"Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values," he said. "Our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both."Without directly naming GOP presidential candidates, the president blasted political leaders for suggesting the United States should accept only Christians fleeing Syria. He alluded to the fact that some of these same politicians -- namely Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), whose father fled Cuba decades ago - -had benefited from America's willingness to accept refugees.
"And when I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that's shameful," he said, his voice rising.
"That's not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion."
