Last month Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House, called for an urgent pause of the Syrian refugee program until there is a guarantee that ISIS isn’t infiltrating it. He was recognizing an outcry from Republican governors and presidential candidates after the Paris attacks.
House Speaker Paul Ryan called the attacks “PURE EVIL”.
Ryan said that he supports the larger refugee program but that we should be cautious to put the program on hold to secure that the United States isn’t delivering terrorists. Ryan already set up a task force to look at the refugee issue. President Barack Obama strongly defended the refugee program saying that we need to remain a humanitarian nation open to help the helpless and the security measures we currently have are working.
This was before the attacks in San Bernardino, California attacks carried out by a marriage visa holder from Saudi Arabia. As a nation we were painfully reminded that people who are already here can commit acts of terror and that Syria is not the only place of origin to be concerned about when it comes to screening immigrants.
www.npr.org/2015/11/17/456365616/house-republicans-create-task-force-on-syrian-refugees
More recently as of December 15th 2015 officials are supporting stricter guidelines that check the social media postings of anyone seeking a visa to the United States.
The State Department today said that “obviously things went wrong” in the visa background check for one of the San Bernardino shooters.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-us-policy-blocks-agents-social-media-visa/story?id=35749325
What do you think? Should immigrants and visa holders have the same rights as citizens when it comes to privacy and search and seizure laws. Often security must come before liberty.