I believe that it is possible to support refugees while disagreeing with the refugees' religion. However, the issue here is about national immigration policy as it relates to potential immigrants and travelers from areas prone to violence or radicalism.
This isn't just about terrorism or links to terrorist groups. It is about ideology that is prevalent in many Islamic nations -- like those targeted by this temporary moratorium on travel.
This ideology includes things like the killing of girls and women for reasons of honor, killing for the cause of Islam, capital punishment for conversion away from Islam, forced adherence to the burka/hijab, forced marriages for underage girls arranged by parents, preeminence of Islamic Sharia law over a nation's laws, conspiracy theories about Jews, etc.
These things are very prevalent in many of these targeted countries. Pew Research and other polling organizations have done extensive polling into the beliefs of Muslims around the world. While a majority might not favor some of these things, very large percentages of the populations of many countries -- including a majority in some of them -- embrace some of these very radical and often violent beliefs. These things are incompatible with a free society.
Simply put: This is a temporary moratorium on travel between those seven countries and the United States until a better system for vetting travelers is implemented.
This weekend, the DNC released talking points -- ranging from labeling this law "racism" and "bigotry" to questioning why Saudi Arabia isn't on the list (as if they wanted to widen the list of countries) -- and activists and the mainstream media has done what it can to repeat those things (often verbatim).
Ironically, the media has ignored the fact that previous administrations have placed travel bans with certain countries (including the ones on this list). They've even ignored the fact that Christians have been persecuted in great numbers throughout the Middle East and, yet, weren't welcomed as refugees in this nation.
There is a very interesting National Geographic documentary about the genocide in Sudan that began during the Clinton Administration in the 1990's. While the conflict in Bosnia received so much attention, Christians in Sudan were being annihilated by Muslims. About a million people were killed. Others were raped, tortured or enslaved. The U.S. waited for years on the U.N. to agree on a definition of "genocide" to decide whether or not the hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims being slaughtered constituted an official "genocide."
So, America did nothing. Many of the refugees fled to neighboring countries where they were forced to live in camps for many years. Some of the survivors were called the "Lost Boys of Sudan."
When Bush became president, Secretary of State Colin Powell ignored the United Nations and called this situation "genocide." Many of these refugees were finally welcomed into countries that would accept them -- and the United States was one of the few countries that did.
The documentary is entitled "God Grew Tired of Us." The title comes from something that a young refugee named John Dau said -- that the people felt that the end of the all things was imminent because God may have grown tired of men. The documentary follows a handful of these young men from the camp and their journey into the United States. Many of these young men had never used things like electricity. Most of them lived in huts in the refugee camps. Their integration into the United States was difficult too. I noticed that those who kept their faith are the ones who have thrived and are making a difference in helping others from Sudan and sharing the Gospel with them.
The documentary is available online and even on YouTube. It is called "God Grew Tired of Us."
