Despite the harrowing images from the growing refugee crisis in Europe, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Thursday that the U.S. needs to be careful taking Syrian refugees.
Paul told CNN on Thursday that bad experiences with previous refugees from Syria and Somalia have him leery of accepting more.
“We are a welcoming nation, and we have accepted a lot of refugees, and I think we will continue to do so. But we also can’t accept the whole world, so I think there are some limits,” Paul said.
But, he continued, “we’ve also run into some problems with accepting so many refugees that we take some of the people who can help rebuild the country. We did this with Iraq, where we won the war, but then we accepted 60,000 Iraqi refugees into our country, some of which wish us harm and tried to attack us.”
“Same way with Somalia,” he continued. “We’ve received so many immigrants and refugees from Somalia that many of them are from the faction going back to Syria to fight against us.”
The migrant crisis has engulfed Europe, leading many to ask whether the U.S. would take refugees from the continued fighting in Syria.