Senator Ted Cruz will introduce legislation preventing Syrian refugees from entering the United States, according to CNN's Dana Bash.

Cruz has yet to formally introduce the bill or publicly release details of what the legislation might entail.

Bash interviewed Cruz on Monday . The full interview is scheduled to air on Tuesday morning on CNN.


Cruz's bill follows multiple statements made by the senator in the aftermath of Friday's shootings in Paris.

The day after the Paris shootings, Cruz told Fox News that Obama and Hillary Clinton's plan to "bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America - it is nothing less than lunacy."

Cruz went on to say that Syrian Christians should be provided "safe haven" in the US, as they are being targeted for genocide and persecution. Cruz suggested that Muslim refugees - like the millions of


Shiites, and targeted by ISIS persecution - be brought to "Muslim-majority countries."

Cruz doubled down on his position on Sunday in South Carolina, calling for closing the borders to Muslim Syrian refugees, but opening them to Christians.

"There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror ," Cruz said. "If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation."

CNN's Dana Bash confronted Cruz on his position, questioning if the situation was different than when his father entered the US as a refugee from Cuba.


"If my father were part of a theocratic and political movement like radical Islam that promotes murdering anyone who doesn't share your extreme faith or forcibly converting them, it would make perfect sense not to let someone in who a embraces political philosophy and theology that says murder the infidels," Cruz said in response.

At a press conference in Turkey on Monday, President Obama called Cruz's statements "shameful."

"When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who's fleeing from a war torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution? That's shameful. That's not American. It's not who we are.

We don't have religious tests to our compassion," said Obama.

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