Byrne has 'tremendous security concerns' with letting Syrian refugees into America

(Audio Above: Congresman Bradley Byrne expresses his concerns with allowing thousands of Syrian refugees in the U.S.)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Congressman Bradley Byrne (R-AL1), a member of the House Armed Forces Committee’s Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, spoke candidly Thursday on Yellowhammer Radio with Cliff Sims regarding the increasing pressure to allow refugees fleeing a civil war in Syria as well as ISIS and other terrorist violence in several regions of the Middle East into the United States, expressing his “tremendous national security concerns.”

Last week President Obama directed the federal government to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next fiscal year, a six-fold increase over the number admitted this year.

“First of all,” Byrne opined, “let’s note the irony that all of these Muslims are coming from Muslim countries are coming to the ‘great Satan.’ Secondly, I have tremendous national security concerns about letting in people from these areas. We know they’re coming from areas where there’s been a dramatic amount of terrorist activity.”

“How do we vet them? Because we need to be concerned about our internal security,” the congressman continued. “Remember, those two Tsarnaev brothers that did the bombing at the Boston Marathon, one of them was here on papers—he wasn’t a citizen—the other one was made a citizen less than a year before they did it. So just letting people in from that part of the world without being sure who they are, what their backgrounds are, do they mean us harm? If we can’t be sure of that we shouldn’t let anybody in. I’m very concerned about that, and I think whoever is going to be making that decision needs to be absolutely certain, individual by individual, who we’re letting in. And oh, by the way, we’ve already got an immigration problem of our own that has nothing to do with the Middle East, but it’s already a huge problem for us, and we’re struggling with that.”

Sims responded to Byrne’s concerns by asking if there was a way to make sure persecuted Christians, in particular, were given entrance to the United States.

“One of the things that’s disturbed Christians over here, and I can say, me personally as well, is that in all of this chaos over there, there are a very very small minority of Christians in that region of the world who are being persecuted like we can’t even imagine,” Sims explained. “And from talking to some of them from there I can tell you that they… they feel like the Obama administration has abandoned them.”

“I’m really conflicted about this, because I have a lot of the security concerns that you do, but I also am reminded of what the poem on the Statue of Liberty really means, ‘Give us your tired, give us your poor, give us your huddled masses.’ It was basically saying, the United States of America is a refuge for persecuted people all over the world, and even our ancestors who fled religious persecution to come here, that’s a part of our history, our heritage, and who we are as a nation. Is there anything that we could be doing for the persecuted Christians who are in that region of the world?”

“Yeah, there are a couple things,” Byrne responded. “We need to go to all of our allies over there that we provide any sort of military or non-military aid, and say you’re not going to get any more aid from us unless you take care of these religious minorities, which in the Middle East means Christians.”

“Number two,” he continued, “when we have valid refugees, people who are truly refugees from religious oppression, then that has its own category under our laws for admitting you to this country. Remember that the line that you didn’t give from the poem, ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”

“If they really yearn to breathe free, and to be American like we are, then I welcome them into this country. But we’ve got to keep our guard up and understand there are people in that part of the world that don’t yearn to breathe free, they yearn to kill those of us that want to breathe free, and we’ve got to protect ourselves and our way of life first and foremost.”

The entire Yellowhammer Radio interview can be heard above, Congressman Byrne’s comments on the Syrian refugee crisis begin approximately 7 minutes in.