Admit Syrian refugees: Our view Rejection shames USA and helps ISIL spread the idea that Americans hate Muslims.

The Editorial Board | USA Today

Americans are understandably apprehensive after Friday's attacks by radical Islamist militants in Paris, especially since the Islamic State terrorist group has promised the same slaughter here. Sensing an opportunity, Republican politicians have been all too eager to exploit those reasonable fears.

As of Tuesday, about half of the governors, all but one of them Republicans, had promised to block Syrian refugees from being resettled in their states, a position that shames America's long tradition of offering a haven for the desperate. The governors’ rhetoric plays into the hands of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL, by justifying the narrative that Americans hate Muslims, and that our wars in the Middle East are a crusade against Islam.

Worse still are GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, who have suggested admitting only Christian refugees. Surely, Christians have suffered horrific persecution in the Middle East, but so have Muslims who have been targeted for indiscriminate slaughter for being members of the wrong sect. The religious bigotry of Cruz and Bush is un-American and un-Christian.

New Jersey Gov. and presidential candidate Chris Christie lapped all his competitors in this sickening race to the bottom with the comment that he’d reject any Syrian refugee, even “orphans under 5.” What New Jersey has to fear from Syrian kids is unclear.

The worry that ISIL will infiltrate terrorists in the guise of refugees is understandable. The Islamic State has threatened to do just that, and early reporting suggests that's how at least one of the attackers got into Paris.

But governors and presidential candidates, the men and women Americans look to for leadership in turbulent times, should have the sense to do some research before leaping to the microphone.

Unlike overwhelmed European countries forced to vet migrants only after they've arrived, the U.S. won't let refugees in until they've gone through lengthy checks. At least four agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, check credentials and backgrounds and conduct multiple interviews of applicants, rejecting them if their stories don’t check out or reveal inconsistencies.

There is no appeal, and the process typically takes from one to two years. If ISIL wanted to strike the U.S., this would be among the slowest and most difficult ways.

The process works. Since 9/11, the U.S. has admitted 784,000 refugees, of whom three — three — have been arrested for plotting terrorist attacks, according to Kathleen Newland, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. Only one was plotting an attack in the USA, plans for which were not credible.

Every terror attack in the U.S. for the past 35 years has been carried out by a non-refugee. “Refugee status is the single most difficult way to come to the U.S.” says David Bier, director of immigration policy for the Niskanen Center. “It makes no sense for a terrorist to try to use the resettlement process for an attack.”

Sadly, blocking terrified and desperate refugees from entering America isn't a new idea. Before World War II, the U.S. turned back Jews fleeing the Holocaust out of fear the Nazis would hide spies among them.

Our failure to open America’s door to the desperate is an enduring source of shame, not something the U.S. should rush to repeat. If you could rely on Republicans for only one thing, you’d think you could rely on them to remember that the author of that disastrous decision, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a Democrat.

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