Rubio: Radical jihadists use refugee crisis as cover

Associated Press

LACONIA, N.H.

Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday that radical jihadists are using the Syrian refugee crisis as cover to send terrorists to the West and that it’s impossible for the United States to vet some migrants from the region.

“They are trying to exploit the refugee crisis out in the Middle East to insert fighters into foreign counties,” Rubio told a New Hampshire audience in response to a voter who said Americans are concerned with immigration from a national-security perspective. “We can’t ignore that.”

The debate over President Barack Obama’s plans to accept 10,000 refugees from Syria over the next year has escalated in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, with many Republicans questioning whether the United States can adequately screen Syrian refugees. Rubio said that though it may be easy to vet a young orphan or a well-known priest, the United States has no way of knowing if someone has recently become radicalized.

So far, there is little evidence that the Islamic State has sent fighters to the West among the mob of refugees.