Who are the victims and who are the aggressors in Syria's conflict between Bashar al-Assad's Alawites and Sunni “anti-government” terrorists? What if ISIS collides with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, other al-Qaeda factions, Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighters, and the Hezbollah militia deployed there?
Under Joe Biden's insane refugee policy, both sides can claim a credible fear of religious or ethnic persecution from their rivals. As a result, we have allowed individuals from all of these belligerent groups to enter our country and live as neighbors.
Syria is now under new leadership and it is time for Sunnis who have been admitted from Syria to return home.
Meanwhile, Christian sects, the only group legitimately feared among Islamic terrorist forces, account for less than 2% of Syrian refugees admitted since the start of the conflict. President Trump must address this injustice immediately.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war, the United States has accepted nearly 50,000 refugees through fiscal year 2024, and has admitted an additional 1,000 refugees per month so far this year. Indeed, this must mean that we have prioritized Christians and Druze refugees.
Wrong.
According to the State Department WRAPS databaseNinety-eight percent of the Syrian refugees admitted are of a Muslim sect, and nearly all are Sunnis. For some reason, al-Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers are now considered great American neighbors simply because they fear Assad and his Shiite allies. This imbalance in refugee admissions needs to be remedied immediately.
Of the 50,000 Syrians granted refugee status, only 798 are Christians and only 28 Yazidis have been granted refugee status. The United States has accepted only 161 Yazidi refugees from Iraq, where the Yazidis were massacred by ISIS.
Iraq is a prime example of the flaws in our nation's refugee program. Of the 82,500 Iraqi refugees admitted since 2012, only a quarter are Christians, even though 100% of those seeking refuge are Christians. Instead, the program allows both radical Shiites and Sunnis to enter the United States as long as they can claim persecution by the other group.
Iraq is saturated with Sunni and Shiite jihadist groups, but each group can qualify for refugee status by demonstrating persecution of minorities within a particular region. This policy effectively imports into American society dangerous terrorists who are fighting each other overseas.
A notable example is Mustafa Musab Arowemaa, who arrived in the United States as a refugee in August 2016, presumably to escape persecution by the Assad regime. In reality, Alomar was a Sunni terrorist. In June 2019, he was arrested in Pittsburgh for planning a detailed terrorist attack on a local church and attempting to provide material support to ISIS. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Given that many Middle Eastern refugees were allowed into the country due to sectarian tensions within Islam, how many more Middle Eastern refugees share Alomar's religious and political beliefs? This highlights the urgent need to re-evaluate and reform refugee policies in the United States.
In recent years, the U.S. refugee program has admitted roughly equal numbers of Sunnis and Shiites. Ironically, extremists from both groups are entrenched in places like Bowling Green, Kentucky. reporting violence What was between them was now revealed. We have brought these conflicts into our country by admitting immigrants based not on their love of American values or their status as a persecuted minority, but on the basis of sectarian violence itself. It is truly “invading the world and inviting the world.''
Since the Iraq War, the United States has accepted more than 170,000 Iraqi refugees. This trend embodies the phenomenon of “invading the world and inviting the world.” The refugee admissions process fails to ensure that individuals who come to the United States share a commitment to American values or do not pose a threat to national security.
In fiscal year 2024, President Biden admitted more than 100,000 refugees. The refugees are primarily illegal immigrants from areas of African tribal wars, Islamic civil wars in the Middle East, or Latin America, and many are from relatively homogeneous ethnic groups.
How many of these refugees can credibly claim that “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” was the “main reason” for their application? Is it? federal law need?
Many appear to be trying to escape typical living conditions in the Third World, rather than being recognized as true refugees. Some countries are embroiled in two-way sectarian conflicts that endanger U.S. national security. Furthermore, many people, especially those from Latin America, come from mono-ethnic countries, yet their status as illegal immigrants is justified through abuses of refugee law.
President Trump should close the current refugee program from day one, leaving only a few thousand spots available to individuals who are truly members of persecuted minorities, rather than rival factions. The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the president the sole power to set annual caps on refugee admissions, making this change entirely within the president's authority.
On Syria, President Trump should take an even bolder step. Syria is now under the leadership of a Sunni president (praised by the corporate left media and the Biden administration), and the time has come for Sunnis who recognize their Syrian origins to return home. Those who have not yet been naturalized should be deported. Their admission under the refugee program was based on falsehoods that no longer exist, and their continued presence in the country would be an abuse of refugee law.
The change in Syria's leadership is even more significant for Europe, which was facing a Syrian migration crisis comparable to the influx of Latin American immigrants in the United States. If European leaders had the foresight, they would come together to declare an end to the Syrian civil war and ask millions of Syrians to leave. But then again, Western leaders often have trouble distinguishing between immigration and conquest.
