John( Lurch) Kerry, the current Secretary of State and who is vying for the
title of Worst Secretary of State Ever, with Hillary Clinton, made one of his
famously stupid statements…again.
On
Monday the 21st of June, speaking at an iftar, which is a meal that
breaks the fast for Muslims, and this time it was also World Refugee Day, he
was heard to utter these idiotic words…” “bigoted
and hateful rhetoric” about Muslims helps those “who propagate the lie that America is at
war with Islam.” Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday evening that refugee
applicants who go through the rigorous screening involved in the U.S. refugee
admission program pose a greater security threat than members of any other
group.
He
also said “There is absolutely no
evidence, my friends, zero evidence, that refugees who
make it through this arduous process, pose any greater threat to our society
than the members of any other group,” he said. “And it is important for people
to know that.” Kerry said blocking any
group on the basis of religion, race or nationality went against Americans
ideals. “Preventing any group from
entering the United States
solely because of their race, or because of their nationality, or because of a
religious affiliation is directly contrary to the very ideals on which our
country is based,” he said.
“We believe in individual
rights, not collective guilt. And we believe in judging people based on what
they do, not the circumstances of their birth or their choice of sacred texts,”
Kerry added.
“We
need to remember,” he continued, “that bigoted and hateful rhetoric towards
Muslims plays right into the hands of the terrorist recruiters who propagate
the lie – it plays into the hands of people who propagate the lie that
America is at war with Islam, when in fact there is no country on earth where
Muslims enjoy more freedom than in the United States of America.”
In
his comments Kerry did not address the issue, raised by some Republicans and
the subject of proposed legislation, of prioritizing in refugee admissions
minorities that have been specifically targeted by Islamic extremists in the
Syria and Iraq conflicts – and which Kerry himself has determined are the
victims of genocide. As of Monday the
20th, the federal government had admitted 4,464 Syrian refugees so far this
fiscal year, of whom just 17 (0.3 percent) are Christians, 10 (0.2 percent) are
Yazidis, and one each are defined in
State Department Refugee Processing Center data as “no religion” and
“other religion.” The vast majority of
the 4,464 – 4,385, or 98.2 percent – are Sunni Muslims. Another 17 are Shi’ite
Muslims and 33 are other Muslims.
With
regard to Kerry’s comments about the relative threat posed by refugees, State
Department spokesman John Kirby said
last November that of 785,000 refugees from all countries admitted to the U.S.
since 9/11, “only about a dozen have been arrested or removed from the United
States due to terrorism concerns that existed prior to their resettlement in
the United States.” A State Department
factsheet last December said that Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since
the beginning of FY2011 had been able to do so “only after the most extensive
level of security screening of any category of traveler to the United States.
None have been arrested or removed on terrorism charges.”
ABC
News reported late last year that two Iraqi refugees resettled in Kentucky were later
found to have al-Qaeda links. In
January, two Iraqi-born Palestinian refugees in the U.S. were indicted on
terror-related charges. Omar Faraj Saeed al-Hardan of Houston,
Texas, was charged with attempting to provide
material support to ISIS, procuring
citizenship or naturalization unlawfully, and making false statements. He was
admitted into the U.S.
as a refugee in 2009. Aws Mohammed
Younis Al-Jayab, of Sacramento, Calif., was accused of traveling to Syria to fight
alongside terrorist groups, and was also charged with lying to the government
about his travels. He arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in 2012.
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