Former United Nations Ambassador, John Bolton, criticized President Obama’s handling of the refugee crisis and said that the president is ignoring the processes in place for dealing with refugees.
“What Obama has done is just junk the entire international framework that has been established for over 70 years really, since the end of WWII on how to handle refugee problems, this from the president who purports to be Mr. International Law,” Bolton told Breitbart News exclusively.
“Obama is just ignoring the settled knowledge and experience of, tragically, decades of dealing with refugees whether from war zones or natural disasters.”
Despite opposition from lawmakers, President Obama is planning to brin in 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of next year.
Bolton said that following in the steps of other European countries and accepting Syrian refugees is a recipe for disaster.
“You don’t just say, ‘ok well we have a war in Syria, let’s open our border to 800,000 people’ as Germany has done. I think its a mistake for Germany, I think Europe is feeling the pain of it now, and I think it will be a mistake for the United States.”
Bolton told Breitbart that President Obama is ignoring the Settled Refugee Doctrine, and that resettlement should be a last resort in only the most extreme cases.
“The Settled Refugee Doctrine, the preferred course is to repatriate the refugees at the earliest opportunity to the places that they came from and then in the meantime you provide, through the UN high commissioner for refugees and other agencies, protection and assistance for them in refugee camps.”
Bolton acknowledged that a life in a refugee camp isn’t a “happy existence, but it’s what you do for a period of time until the reason that they fled is taken care of.”
Bolton is concerned that, by telling Syrian refugees that they are all welcomed into the United States, that you’re telling other refugees that America doesn’t have enough space for them.
“When you just say, we’re gonna take people from a given area in, without even seeking to decide whether they qualify as refugees, you’re telling people who may be legitimate refugees elsewhere in the world that we don’t have room for you. I just think that’s unfair and discriminatory against people who really do suffer from a well founded fear of persecution.”
He also blasted President Obama’s handling of ISIS and believes our enemies are going to do as much as possible while Obama is still in office.
“In the course of the next year, the pace and scope of the challenges we’re going to face is actually going to increase, because our adversaries don’t know any more than you and I do who is going to win the 2016 election, but they know they’ve got another year of Obama, so this is the time to take advantage of that.”
“Obama has turned his attention away from America’s position in the world and protecting our friends and allies,” Bolton told Breitbart News. “It has resulted in a perception of American weakness and therefore given rise to our adversaries, given rise to the opportunity to take advantage of it.”
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