INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

New Senate Bill Allows Syrian Christians To Settle In U.S. After Determining Threat Of ‘Genocide’ [Video]

By Dee Sharp
Published on: 08:40 PST, Mar 19, 2016

A new Senate bill will allow approximately 50,000 Syrian Christians and other religious minorities to immigrate to and settle in the U.S. The Christian Post reported that Secretary of State John Kerry had announced that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria and hours later, Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Senator, introduced the Senate bill to allow the U.S. Syrian refugee resettlement program. On Monday, March 15, the House approved a resolution that declared ISIS is committing genocide against Syrian Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East which put pressure on the Obama administration to follow suit before a deadline later this week.

The resolution was passed by the House with a unanimous vote of 383-0. The resolution was voted on just a few days after the release of a graphic report published by the Knights of Columbus. An earlier Inquisitr article reported on this report and asked the question of would the U.S. finally admit that “genocide” was happening against Christians and other minority religions in the Middle East. The answer came a few days later with the resolution being voted on. The report clearly illustrated that genocide is indeed the goal of ISIS towards Syrian Christians and other minority religions in the Middle East.

CP mentioned that after Kerry declared that the Islamic State is committing genocide in Iraq and Syria, Senator Cotton introduced the Religious Persecution Relief Act, a legislation that would require the U.S. government to designate 10,000 refugee resettlement slots each year for the next five years for Syrian religious minorities. The new Senate bill will also expedite the U.S.’s review process for religious minorities who don’t register with the U.N. because of fear of persecution in refugee camps. The bill will allow those persecuted individuals to apply for resettlement directly at U.S.-funded refugee centers in northern Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.

https://twitter.com/McGMaryland/status/711061332708077568

The CP article said that Cotton spoke on the Senate floor on Thursday, March 17, and argued that the current refugee resettlement plan by the Obama administration only allows for a total of 10,000 Syrian refugees this year was “ill-considered,” in light of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian Christians who had been tortured, murdered, raped and displaced by ISIS.

“The United States unwisely relies on the United Nations for all referrals of refugees seeking resettlement, Christians and other religious minorities fleeing persecution are the victims of unintentional discrimination when seeking asylum and protection in the United States,” Cotton said. He also pointed out that out of the 1,790 Syrian refugees that resettled in the U.S. last year, only 41 were religious minorities, and 29 of that group were Christian.

“That means that while 13 percent of Syria’s pre-war population consisted of religious minorities, only 2.3 percent of the refugees that make it to the U. S. are religious minorities.”

As seen in the video, Senator Cotton supports his introduction of the new Senate bill by mentioning a 12-year-old Syrian Christian boy who was killed by ISIS six months ago along with his father, who was a Christian minister, and two other Christians just because of their Christian faith. The ISIS terrorists started cutting off the boy’s fingers and told the boy’s father that if he would renounce his faith, and return to Islam, that his son’s suffering would stop. They then killed the boy, his father and the other two Christians by crucifixion. Senator Cotton said that in the time of Jesus, crucifixion was meant to be a brutal warning to all, but that the death of Jesus turned the cross into a”revered symbol of His sacrifice, and the promise of salvation.” Cotten stated that ISIS is trying to turn the symbol of the cross once again into a message of terror and dread.

The Christian Post said that Cotton’s introduction of the bill was applauded by the human rights advocacy organization, In Defense of Christians, and other human rights activists. What do you think about the U. S. allowing Syrian Christians to settle in the U. S.?

[Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite]

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