Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said that in a classified briefing with “senior intelligence and defense officials of the Obama administration” the officials stated “they have no idea of the backgrounds of these Syrian Muslim refugees. They have no information. They have nothing to query the database against because they don’t know who’s part of ISIS and who’s not” on Wednesday’s “Mark Levin Show.”
Cruz stated, “I just came, a couple of hours of ago, from a classified briefing that the senior intelligence and defense officials of the Obama administration gave us on the Paris terror attacks, and much of the conversation focused on Syrian refugees. And I will tell you everything the administration said in the classified briefing, is exactly consistent with what Director Comey just said [in a clip of Comey saying, “So, I think that’s the challenge we’re all talking about, is that, we can only query against that which we have collected. And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity, or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but we’re not going to –there will be nothing to show up, because we have no record on that person. That’s what Director Steinbach was talking about. You can only query what you’ve collected. And with respect to Iraqi refugees, we had far more in our databases because of our country’s work there for a decade. This is a different situation.”] which is, they have no idea of the backgrounds of these Syrian Muslim refugees. They have no information. They have nothing to query the database against because they don’t know who’s part of ISIS and who’s not. You know, if you look at the refugees that are streaming into Europe right now, one study said 77% of those refugees are young males. That is a very unusual demographic for refugees. We know that at least of the terrorists in Paris, who committed these horrific acts of murder, came through the refugee program into Europe.”
Earlier Cruz said, “apparently, President Obama has a problem with acknowledging who’s subject to genocide. Right now, ISIS is directing genocide, they are crucifying Christians. They are beheading Christians, and it is US immigration law, existing statues, that give a special focus on people facing religious persecutions, and indeed, US statue also has targeted, and Obama has signed this, Jews and Evangelical Christians that are being persecuted in certain countries. That is existing law. It’s called the Lautenberg Amendment. It was put in place by a Democratic Senator, Frank Lautenberg from New Jersey, and Barack Obama signed it into law.”
Cruz also criticized the president’s refusal “to acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism. He refuses to say those words, so he cannot distinguish between radical Islamic terrorists, ISIS terrorists, and Christians who are being persecuted.” He later declared, “they certainly can’t vet people if they won’t even say the words to determine who’s coming after us.”
He also challenged the president to debate him over the Syrian refugee issue, adding, “apparently, he thinks all of us are un-American if we don’t agree with bringing in refugees who could pose a serious terrorist threat.” He later pointed to the “some 30 governors, both Republicans and Democrats” who “have come together and agreed with my position, don’t be letting refugees that are a threat of waging jihad here, and yet President Obama thinks we’re all un-American, because we want to keep this country safe.”
Cruz also argued that “any member of Congress that votes to bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees, will bear direct responsibility for any acts of terror that come from that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett