Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has sent a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan urging that in the wake of the Islamic State attacks in Paris, the House terminate “all public funding for any ongoing federal programs that seek to resettle refugees and/or migrants from Syria into the United States, effective immediately.”
“The national security of the American people demands that the Congress swiftly extinguish any programs that might allow an ISIS terrorist to infiltrate the United States disguised as a refugee or migrant,” Carson said.
Carson will announce the request Monday at a news conference in Nevada.
In the letter, Carson notes that President Obama has pledged to accept “an additional 45,000 new refugees, mostly from Syria, in 2016-2017.” After the Paris attacks, Carson wrote, “there can be no disputing the fact that the United States cannot, should not, and must not accept
any Syrian refugees, let alone the dramatically larger number President Obama volunteered to host.”
Carson has come under criticism for his halting performance when asked on “Fox News Sunday” what he would do as president to respond to the Paris attacks. The letter to Ryan, plus other steps Carson says he would take against the Islamic State, are likely to be the focus of Monday’s news conference.
