Obama Vows That Despite Protests U.S. Will Accept Syrian Refugees ‘As long As I’m President!’
A visit to a Malaysian humanitarian center has only served to reinforce Barack Obama’s position that the U.S. needs to be more open to accepting Syrian refugees. Recent efforts by governors across the United States to bar Syrian refugees from resettling in the country have forced the President to issue his own defiant statement and he says that “as long as I’m president” millions of refugees fleeing violence around the world will find a safe haven in the U.S.
The statement came on Saturday at a learning center in the Malaysian capital where the President got to meet a group of migrant children. The sharply dressed boys and girls that sat at their tables painting and doing puzzles had all fled to the country to escape violence in their own homelands. In addition to Syrian refugee children, those who had fled countries such as Myanmar and Pakistan had also found solace here. Obama is in Malaysia for the 3rd ASEAN – U.S. Summit (regional economic summit) and while the political opinions regarding refugees continued to be a battle field in the the U.S., the president was chatting to the young children about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Thanks to the Dignity for Children Foundation in Kuala Lumpur these migrant children did indeed have a future to look forward to.
Obama met with Rohingya Muslim refugees in Malaysia. He's not a perfect president, but ill miss him pic.twitter.com/dtV5P9exsx
— Teymour (@Teymour_Ashkan) November 21, 2015
After the meeting, the President says he cannot understand the atmosphere of fear that so many of his countrymen hold for these children.
“They were indistinguishable from any child in America.. represent the opposite of terror, the opposite of the type of despicable violence we saw in Mali and Paris. And the notion that somehow we would be fearful of them, that our politics would somehow leave us to turn our sights away from their plight, is not representative of the best of who we are.”
Huffington Post notes that majority of the children that Obama met are of the Muslim ethnic group, Rohinga. Religious persecution in Myanmar has seen tens of thousands of Rohinga fleeing from the Buddhist majority and many ended up in Malaysia. In the wake of the Paris attacks, many tried to argue that terrorism has no religion and persecuting all Muslims for the actions of ISIS is simply unfair as Islam does not teach violence. The fact that the Rohingas fled persecution from Buddhists, whose true practice only promotes peace, is being used to showcase that within every religion there are those who are radical.
U.S. lawmakers have been stepping up efforts to end or at the very least delay the resettlement of the 10,000 Syrian refugees that Obama had pledged that the U.S. would receive, because of concerns that terrorists could pose as refugees and carry out attacks similar to those done in Paris. President Obama has actively rejected the idea and maintains that it would be un-American to not help any of the over 60 million refugees that have been displaced due to war in their country. Barack Obama has pledged that as the United States’ president he will veto any bill that is put before him regarding barring Syrians from entering the country.
“As long as I’m president, we are going to keep stepping up.”
Obama says that anyone who has the opportunity to interact with those children he met in Malaysia would understand that there is no difference between their needs and that of any American child. They are all deserving of “love and stability and protection.”
President Obama met with young Muslim refugees and it was absolutely heartwarming https://t.co/2JB2KRwqRC pic.twitter.com/mVr4SMRlDr
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 21, 2015
White House representatives have advised that the refugees Obama met with have all been cleared for resettlement in the United States and already have their assigned states. Once the president returns from Malaysia to the United States on Monday, he will again tackle the refugee debate. On Tuesday Obama will meet with French President Francois Hollande, who vowed revenge on ISIS after the Paris attacks, but still intends to do the humanitarian deed of allowing 30,000 Syrian refugees into France.
According The New York Times Vice President Biden insists that fear regarding security screenings of Syrian is unfounded as they have the most rigorous protocols in place of any migrant group he has ever seen.
“First they are fingerprinted, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that, the F.B.I., the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access.”
[Photo Courtesy of Chris McGrath/ Getty Images]
