- Ted Cruz suggesting Christian refugees be prioritized is reasonable, authentic and appropriate
- Prioritization has always been part of immigration policy
Ted Cruz is not the only one suggesting, in response to the Syrian refugee situation, that known Christian refugees from the Middle East be prioritized for admission to the U.S. However, he is the one catching the most flack. The left sees him as the most effective political and intellectual threat to their policies of degrading the Constitutional and cultural identity. As a sitting Senator and one of the leading presidential candidates, he has the standing to effectively advocate policy.
Cruz has never proposed excluding Muslims from normal immigration or refugee standing because of their Islamic religion but he has properly recognized that Christians face enhanced threats from Islamic extremists who dominate their countries of origin. Quoting Cruz: “Christians who are being targeted, for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them.”
Barack Hussein Obama has tried to paint critics of his desire to bring in tens of thousands of supposed war refugees from Syria as employing “shameful” un-American religious tests to keep Muslims out and as being fearful of three-year-old orphans, as if they constituted a significant portion of the actual refugee demographics.
Obama’s three-year-old reasoning can be dispatched with the simple response that all three-year-old orphans should be admitted as long as potential Muslim adoptive parents are given no prioritization. If he thinks placement with prospective Muslim parents should be prioritized then he is employing or recognizing a religious preference. Religious “tests” (prioritizations) are not necessarily un-American and indeed are part of immigration law.
Andrew McCarthy writing at National Review makes the latter point about relevant immigration law in his article provocatively titled: Refugee ‘Religious Test’ Is ‘Shameful’ and ‘Not American’ … Except that Federal Law Requires It Simply stated, persecution because of “religion” is one of the criterion that can qualify for admittance. His article points to relevant current law in that respect.
Logically from that, and indeed morally, when a particular group is especially targeted by Islamic terrorists for their religion, as Christians in Syria and the Middle East are, their more dire identity and situation can be should be taken into account for admittance into a country whose culture is more compatible religiously. It may be” frying pan to fire” to send them to other Muslim dominated countries but not so as regards sending Muslims to Muslim countries, even mixing Shiites and Sunni is less risky .
It is also legitimate to establish quotas based on national origin. Nothing requires the U.S. to be the unlimited go to place for any other country. Historically the US has set quotas limiting immigration selectively from even friendly countries, out of concerns about economics and assimilation. The U.S. has also exempted or made special provisions for groups, ethnic and religious, for various foreign policy or humanitarian reasons. Concerns about assimilation, economic absorption and not aggravating the creation of enclaves have legitimately motivated the establishment of quotas. The accusation of xenophobia is an easy shibboleth to cast but doing so does not make concerns about economics and assimilation inappropriate.
Immigration has been severely limited to outright denied from other countries because of the threat of subversion. No expatriate or refugee from one country can claim a right to residency in any particular country.
Many people assume immigration policy changes in 1965 ended country of origin limitations in favor of other rationals. In spite of many conceptual changes at that time some limitations on countries and regions remained even if no longer the focus. The Pew Research Center The Nation’s Immigration Laws, 1920 to Today states:
Although the 1920s-era national origins quotas were abolished, the new 1965 law did include total hemisphere and country quotas. Though the hemisphere quotas were dropped in the following decade (Martin, 2011). Importantly, the law imposed the first limits on immigration from Western Hemisphere countries, including Mexico.
According to the American Immigration Council: How the United States Immigration System Works: A Fact Sheet : (bold emphasis ours)
The admission of refugees turns on numerous factors such as the degree of risk they face, membership in a group that is of special concern to the United States (designated yearly by the President of the United States and Congress), and whether or not they have family members in the U.S.
There is no ethical failure in not admitting immigrants in general or immigrant refugees for resettlement, or putting conditions on their stay when other countries can more easily assimilate them, when conflicts or dangers driving their departure may be temporary, when such refugees have not or cannot be “vetted” to insure their good will and tolerance of American culture (and other reasons as well).
Reading the comment section the McCarthy article a writer fiddlerbob applied an analogy that we found compelling and have adapted here:
Analogy: A truckload of boxes arrive in your community. You are told that by far most of them are OK but that a few contain deadly snakes, stinging hornets, and scorpions. You could largely eliminate most of the bad boxes using criteria the shipper won’t use. You are also told if you take any, you have to take them all and you can only find out what’s in them by opening them all once they’re in.
That is pretty much what the Obamacrats want us to do regardless of Obama’s unverifiable assertions that vetting of refugees is “robust.” The U.S. has been targeted by Islamic terrorists for infiltration using refugee status as a cover, there is no way to adequately vet all but a small percentage of the Muslim refugees from the region. Obama is promoting admission of tens of thousands against the will of the American people.
R Mall
Addenda: Molly Ziegler at The Federalist has a worthy article regarding 3 Tips For A More Civil Conversation About Syrian Refugees. Her thoughtful and evenhanded approach, in our judgement gives Christian liberals the most to think about regarding their presumption that they have the moral high ground on such matters . Christian liberals have not claim to a definitive Christian response to Middle Eastern refugees (some of the reader comments to her piece also add beneficial perspective). The article contains commentary that applies to much of the debate regarding immigration including culture, open borders, nation states, appropriate foreign policy and charity.
