To the Editor:
Your report on the press conference on Syrian refugees sided with the protesters who came to the State House to shout us down. Yet polls show that our view represents the majority opinion of Americans, and probably of Rhode Islanders, regarding the potential danger posed by importing refugees from a country where Baathist and Islamist ideology have poisoned innocent minds and instilled anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny, hatred for democracy and support for terror into many generations of Syrians.
FBI Director James Comey says there is no real way of vetting these refugees for ties to terror. Officials express concerns about ISIS’s ability to infiltrate the country via Syrian refugees.
Additionally, a State Department study documents Jew-hatred rampant in mosques and statements by government spokesmen. To see these things is to be shocked and sickened.
We are proud to be a nation of immigrants. We sympathize with people running from war. We should do whatever we can to protect them in their own country from the barbarism of both the Iran-Assad axis and ISIS. But we should also learn the lessons of Europe, in which instances of violence and sexual assault have taken place since the relocation of refugees to Cologne, Paris, and Stockholm.
Charles Jacobs
Americans for Peace and Tolerance
