Will America be the next Paris?

Several of the Islamic State (IS) terrorists responsible for the horrendous terror attack in Paris last week, which claimed at least 129 victims, are confirmed as having entered into Europe by posing as refugees.  This attack was just one of the many terror attacks that France has had to face this year.  Additionally, with a continuous flow of refugees, along with claims by IS to have smuggled thousands of covert jihadists into Europe, make it unlikely that France, or the rest of Western Europe for that matter, will see a quelling of violence in 2016.

Moreover, America will likely face the growing threat of terrorism, like that seen in Paris, as thousands of Syrian refugees are soon to be at our doorstep.  The Obama administration has stated that they plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States in FY 2016.

Just hours before the Paris attack, President Obama claimed that IS is not “gaining strength” and has been ‘contained.’  Yet despite the Paris attacks proving this revelation false, President Obama has decided to double down on his willingness to imports tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into America.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in the aftermath of the Paris attack, White House deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes tried reassuring host Chuck Todd that the Syrian refugees that America will be taking in were not a threat to our national security, stating, “We have very robust vetting procedures for those refugees.”  However, his statement directly contradicts FBI director James Comey who said last month in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing that the federal government does not have the ability to conduct a thorough background check on all 10,000 refugees.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has a long history of downplaying Islamic terrorism and the rise of terrorist groups, such as IS.  Instead of blaming radical Islam, the White House has been known to attribute terrorist attacks on things such as, lack of job opportunities, YouTube video’s, climate change, and even ‘older’ ‘boring’ people.  Democrats, including presidential nominees such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), continue to parrot arguments such as global warming being a greater threat than terrorism, while all the while jihadist continue to work on ways to enter our country to commit terrorist acts, like we just saw in Paris.

I have not doubts that a vast majority of these refugees are innocent people simply fleeing the persecution they face at the hands of IS.  However, our nations first responsibility is to ensure the safety and security of its own citizenry.  It is within our nation’s best interest to take IS’s claim that thousands of jihadists are refugees are actually covert jihadist seriously.

If the administration got it so wrong with their assessment that IS is contained, just hours before the Paris attack, why should we believe their assessment that they we can properly vet these refugees; especially since it flies in the face of earlier statements made by the FBI?

It would behoove us to halt the flow of Syrian refugees until we have a system in place that allows us to vet incoming Syrian refugees properly.  In order to establish a system that can properly vet refugees, we first need to define the threat.  Unfortunately, so long as we have a president unwilling to acknowledge the sobering reality that attacks, such as the one in Paris are the result of radical Islam and not climate change, such a system cannot exist.