Speech #1140064269

While there is no question that ISIS will kill and persecute Muslims whom it regards as apostates for refusing to adhere to its construction of Islam. it is abject idiocy to suggest that Muslims are facing the same ubiquity and intensity of persecution as Christians. "And it is down right dishonest to claim that taking such religious distinctions into account is not American. let alone shameful. How can something American law requires be .not American? And how can a national expression of compassion expressly aimed at alleviating persecution be shameful?" That is Andrew McCarthy yesterday. the NationalReview.com. "The State Department Turns Its Back on Syrian Christians and Other NonMuslim Refugees" is an article by Nina Shea. November 2. She says: "Over the past 5 years of Syrias civil war. the United States has admitted a grand total of 53 Syrian Christian refugees. a lone Yazidi. and fewer than 10 Druze. Bahais. and Zoroastrians combined. That so few of the Syrian refugees coming here are nonMuslim minorities is due to American reliance on a United Nations refugee -resettlement program that disproportionately excludes them. Past absolute totals of Syrian refugees to the United States under this program were small. but as the Obama administration now ramps up refugee quotas by tens of thousands. it would be unconscionable to continue with a process that has consistently forsaken some of the most defenseless and egregiously persecuted of those fleeing Syria. "The gross underrepresentation of the nonMuslim communities in the numbers of Syrian refugees into the U.S. is reflected year after year in the State Departments public records. They show. for example. that while Syrias largest nonMuslim groupChristians of the various Catholic. Orthodox. and Protestant traditionsconstituted 10 percent of Syrias population before the war. they are only 2.6 percent of the 2.003 Syrian refugees that the United States has accepted since then. "Syrias Christian population. which before the war numbered 2 million. has since 2011 been decimated by what Pope Francis described as religious genocide." I want to insert at this point. Madam Speaker. that I have been advised that this administration is now saying that the persecution of Christians is not being deemed a genocide. Perhaps it is because this administration feels like if you are taking the young girls and putting them into sex slavery and you are not outright killing themyou are just raping them and putting them into sex slaverythen maybe that is not a genocide. You are letting the girls live. So maybe they are so callous that they would consider it is not genocide if you just rape and put these young girls who are Christians or from Christian families into sexual slavery. This article from Nina Sea says: "Clearly. far more than a dozen members of Syrias religious minorities should qualify as refugees under the legal definition of a refugee as someone with a wellfounded fear of persecution based on religion.. . . Instead minorities have difficulty getting to step one in the U.N. process. The religious terror that drove them from Syria blocks their registering. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is largely limited to collecting refugee applications and making resettlement referrals from its own camps and centersthe burden of feeding creates strong incentives for this practice. "In an email to me. Knox Thames. the State Departments new Special Adviser for Religious Minorities wrote that many minorities have not entered the U.N. system because they are urban refugees. That is. because they live far from the remote U.N. camps and aid centers. they lack the information and access to register. And. as is widely known. many nonMuslim refugees try hard to avoid these camps." The reason Christians try to avoid these U.N. camps is that they are Muslim. In fact. in this article. it is pointed out: "According to British media. a terrorist detector asserted that militants enter U.N. camps to assassinate and kidnap Christians. An American Christian aid group reported that the U.N. camps are dangerous places where ISIS. militias. and gangs traffic in women and threaten men who refuse to swear allegiance to the caliphate. "Such intimidation is also reportedly evident in migrant camps in Europe. leading the German police union to recommend separate shelters for Christians and Muslim migrant groups." The article goes on to point out: "According to a recent UNHCR posting. 19.000 Syrians picked straight from .refugee camps in Turkey. Lebanon. and Jordan. have received U.N. approval and are awaiting resettlement in the United States. In October. President Obama ordered their expedited admission. Without further action. however. only token numbers of nonMuslim minorities will be among those rescued. George Carey. former Archbishop of Canterbury. called it right about the Christian refugees. and his words equally apply to Syrias other nonMuslim communities: They are being left at the bottom of the heap." There is an article from Todd Starnes. November 18yesterdayentitled "Obama is Importing Muslims. Deporting Christians." Well. if this is true. so much for his testthat we dont care about religious tests. But this article says: "When individuals say we should have a religious test and that only Christiansproven Christians should be admittedthat is offensive and contrary to American values. the President saidjust one day after he called such behavior unAmerican." But as Todd Starnes says: "What is offensive and contrary to American values is refusing to properly investigate those wanting to come to our Nationespecially those coming from regions that are hotbeds of Islamic extremism. "Those of us who fear that Islamic radicals might be lurking among the refugees have been called every name in the book: bigots. Islamophobes. and unAmerican . . . But the President says such prudence only further enflames the Islamic jihadists." The President warns that it is counterproductive and needs to stop.