How can a man whose own home town was traumatized by the arrest of Muslim refugee terrorists, and whose home state of Kentucky is a prime US State Department resettlement site for Somali, Iraqi, Burmese and soon-to-arrive Syrian Muslims have the audacity to tell the French that they need to re-think their immigration policy!
Frankly, I had a lot of hope for Senator Paul a few years ago when he raised some hell in Washington over how those two Iraqi (now convicted and in prison) terrorists slipped through Homeland Security’s hands (they lied on refugee applications, big surprise!) when one of them had fingerprints on IED fragments from Iraq. He is the only Senator I have seen even make a peep about the Refugee Program.
Maybe I’m the only one who remembers Senator Paul’s brief stand! See posts here, here, here and here. After 2013 (what! when 2016 was around the corner?) it sure sounds like Paul himself erased concerns for Kentucky and America right out of his mind!
Why doesn’t Senator Rand Paul get it—if he came out strongly right now about American security as it relates to LEGAL and illegal immigration he would have a shot at the Presidency in 2016!
This is the news that got me steamed this morning. From CNN:
(CNN)Sen. Rand Paul thinks that France needs to rethink its immigration policy in light of the recent terror attacks.
The Kentucky Republican said Thursday that intelligence and surveillance tactics should still be employed to prevent terrorism, but argued “there’s some policy changes, though, that could be better.”
“I think also you got to secure your country. That means maybe that every Muslim immigrant that wishes to come to France shouldn’t have an open door to come,” he said on Sean Hannity’s radio show, referring to Islamic radicalization in Europe.
Paul suggested such policy be considered by France and “many of these other countries that had old colonies in predominantly Muslim areas.”
He does throw in a comment about our border security and student visas (big deal), but more than any other Senator in Washington, maybe even more than Senator Jeff Sessions (who doesn’t say much about refugees), Paul knows about the dangers and the cost of our refugee program.
Paul, a potential presidential contender, argued that “it’s also my concern here,” saying the U.S. border “is a danger to attack” and criticizing what he described as a poorly monitored student visa program.
See our extensive archive on Kentucky and its many problems with refugees, here. Paul’s home town of Bowling Green was until recently a ‘preferred resettlement site!‘ Sometime after 2009 it was taken off the list, why? because it is so overloaded with refugees that the feds and their resettlement contractors are now focusing on other Kentucky cities like Louisville (where they eat camels!).
About the photo and Senator Paul’s association with Grover Norquist. In 2007 Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform) was promoting, with his inside-the-beltway Republicans, the idea of bringing in Iraqi refugees. More recently Norquist and Suhail Kahn ginned-up a letter from a group of RINOs to bring in more refugees generally.
Jeb Bush signed that letter asking that we resettle MORE refugees.
Note to Paul—get away from Grover Norquist!