And they did. This weekend, my mom joined hundreds of thousands of Americans to
call on the President to change course, knowing that our family's
struggles in Europe require us to recognize the danger and persecution
facing families throughout the Middle East today. Out of a population of 22 million, almost 5 million Syrians have fled
to neighboring countries--some to Europe--and have registered as
refugees. More than half of those displaced are children. According to the United Nations, more than half of the remaining
Syrian population--6 million of them children--require assistance such
as food, water, and health care. Nearly one in four people in Lebanon
today--tonight--is a Syrian refugee, and the fourth largest city in
Jordan is now a refugee camp. In the wake of President Trump's refugee ban, it seems useful to
ask--and I am sure the American people are asking--why are so many
millions of people fleeing their homes, their countries, and their
history? They are doing it to save their lives--and, in many cases, their
children's lives--from ISIS's medieval barbarism and Assad's
unrelenting brutality. They seek to escape the murder, rape, detention,
and torture they suffer because of their religion or their ethnicity or
both. Assad is their enemy. ISIS is their enemy. Today's refugees are
fleeing the violence and extremism that threatens our own national
security. Their enemies are our enemies. The same is true of the
refugees from Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan. Does this mean we have an obligation simply to open our borders to
them? Of course not. We have a national security imperative to ensure
that no terrorist tries to sneak into the United States as part of the
refugee program. I have long said that the burden of proof is not on the United States
to accept a refugee. Rather, the refugee has the burden to demonstrate
that they are not a threat to the United States. We have no obligation,
nor should we, to take anything on faith. It is for this reason that
refugees are more thoroughly vetted than anyone else entering the
United States. They must pass stringent screening standards to ensure
that they pose no threat, a process that can take up to 2 years. First, the United Nations screens them and collects biometric data. Only those who pass that test are then referred to the United States. And, by the way, no refugee knows at that stage of the process to which
country they will be referred--to the United States or to any other
country that is accepting refugees. After that, multiple agencies--
including the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the State
Department, and our intelligence agencies--conduct rigorous screenings. This process includes repeated biometric checks, several layers of
biographical and background screening, health checks, and interviews. Syrian refugees, in particular, receive enhanced scrutiny through an
additional security risk review by specially trained officers. Out of the nearly 60,000 people referred to the United States, only
about 12,000 have been accepted. Of those Syrian refugees accepted by
the United States, three-quarters are women and children and half were
under 13 in 2016. We are the leader of the free world, a republic founded on the
premise of religious freedom and a society that for generations has
called out to the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses yearning to
be free. That is who we are.
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refugee refugees