Story highlights Trump said of refugees, "I can look at their faces and say, 'Look you can't come here'"

Trump struck a markedly different tone in addressing tough questions from a town hall audience

Salem, New Hampshire (CNN) Donald Trump asserted Monday that as president he could face Syrian refugee children and tell them they cannot come to the United States.

The remark came Monday as Trump took about a dozen questions during a town hall event that drew just over 200 voters -- an uncharacteristically intimate setting for Trump -- just a day before the New Hampshire primary.

"I can look at their faces and say, 'Look, you can't come here,'" Trump said after 30 year-old Darren Ornitz of Greenwich, Connecticut, asked the billionaire businessman -- who owns a home there -- whether he would be willing to personally bar Syrian children from resettling there.

"Their parents should always stay with them. But we don't know where their parents come from. We have no documentation whatsoever," Trump continued. "There's absolutely no way of saying where these people come from."

Trump went on, suggesting that Syrian refugees have pictures of ISIS flags "and worse" on their cell phones.

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