Republican presidential candidate and purported Fifth Avenue marksman Donald Trump held a town-hall event in New Hampshire after his entertaining appearance on Morning Joe. The topic? Just about anything the Donald wanted to talk about, including what he would say to the young children of displaced Syrian refugees were he ever to encounter them. (Here’s a clue: It’s not very nice.)
According to The Hill, an attendee identifying himself as a Connecticut resident brought up the Syrian refugee crisis and the federal government’s past and present efforts to bring in a certain number of immigrants with the cooperation of numerous states. He then asked Trump if he could “look at these children” and tell them they wouldn’t be allowed to enter the United States, enroll in its schools and take advantage of its services, the Republican front-runner basically said yes.
“I can look in their faces and say, ‘You can’t come here.’ “
Unsurprisingly, this immediately prompted a brief diatribe on the subject by Trump.
“We don’t know where their parents come from, they have no documentation whatsoever… I’ve talked to the greatest legal people, spoken to the greatest security people. There’s absolutely no way of saying where these people come from. They may be from Syria, they may be ISIS, they may be ISIS-related.”
He then argued that most of the refugees were military-aged men and not families with women and children. Men who reportedly had access to cell-phones with “ISIS flags” and other suspicious paraphernalia that actual refugees wouldn’t have.
“You see them on cellphones, where do they get their cellphones? This is a migration, they have no anything, but they have cellphones, with ISIS flags on them and worse,” Trump said, asking how the those who migrate are able to pay for their cellphone bills.
In addition, Trump also suggested that the refugee crisis was more the responsibility of countries in the Gulf region and the Middle East.
Of course, none of this should come as a surprise — not even Trump’s hypothetical answer to a bunch of hypothetical Syrian refugee children. After the Paris terrorist attacks, several state governors and representatives lobbied against the White House’s plans. Of course, the hot topic entered the 2016 elections — especially after the San Bernardino shooting in December, which prompted Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.
(Via The Hill)