Analysis: Pitting Nazism’s Refugees Against Syria’s Helps No One

One of the latest tropes to circumnavigate the Internet is the notion that the last time the United States’ citizenry spoke up against accepting thousands of refugees, the victims were largely Jews and the persecutors were National Socialists in Germany, more commonly known as Nazis.

“How can America do this again?” is the question raised by those making the point.

First off, it’s sadly true: America in the 1930s was not a welcoming place for refugees, or for immigrants overall. From the 1920s until the mid-1960s, American immigration policy was strictly controlled under a quota system. Once the numbers for, say, Austria or Germany or France were filled in a given year, that was it. (My paternal grandfather, who arrived in this country during that period, was able to immigrate when his birthplace was “relocated” by a friendly bureaucrat in Washington from Austria to then-Soviet Russia.)

In the 1930s, America suffered from two plagues: recovery from the Great Depression, which made good jobs scarce and everyone jittery, and lingering anti-Semitism, stoked by racist elements. Even a Roman Catholic priest, Father Charles Coughlin, defended the Nazis November 1938 Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in Germany, a prelude to the roundup and extermination of Jews in the Holocaust.

Things were so bad that even in April 1939, roughly six months after the Kristallnacht, 85 percent of Protestant Americans, 84 percent of Catholic Americans, and nearly 26 percent of Jewish Americans said “no,” when asked whether the U.S. should admit 10,000 Jewish refugee children fleeing what would become one of the largest genocides in modern history.

So against this background, it’s easy to see why there are voices suggesting it’s wrong—even un-Christian—to suggest America refuse entry to as many as 10,000 Syrian refugees a year. This is despite reports that a fingerprint of one of the Paris attack suspects—now linked to ISIS—matched that of a person who came through Greece as a refugee fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Last weekend, two Republican 2016 presidential candidates, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, suggested America’s focus should be on Christian refugees fleeing ISIS attacks, drawing an angry response from President Barack Obama at a Monday news conference in Turkey. 

“When I hear folks say that, ‘Maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims,’ when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefitted from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Obama declared. 

Less than a month before, however, FBI Director James Comey admitted to Congress his agency might come up short in the vetting process for Syrian refugees. 

“We can only query against that which we have collected,” Comey told the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security. Comey added, “So if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home but we are not going to—there will be nothing … because we have no record on that person.” 

What’s more, a recent survey from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS) revealed that 13 percent of Syrian refugees—interviewed in camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan—support ISIS’ goals. If applied proportionally to the proposed 10,000 Syrian refugees the Obama administration wants to admit to the United States in each of the next two years, that would translate to at least 2,600 potential ISIS supporters. 

That may be a big assumption, given that many refugees from Iraq and Syria are Christians. But cnsnews.com reports, “Of 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, only 53 (2.4 percent) have been Christians while 2,098 (or 96 percent) have been Muslims, according to State Department statistics updated on Monday. The remaining 33 include 1 Yazidi, 8 Jehovah[‘s] Witnesses, 2 Baha’i, 6 Zoroastrians, 6 of ‘other religion,’ 7 of ‘no religion,’ and 3 atheists.” 

According to Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican, this reflects disordered priorities. 

“The American people have long demonstrated unmatched compassion for the world’s persecuted and endangered. But when bringing refugees to our shores, the U.S. government must put the security of Arkansans and all Americans first. No terrorist should be able to take advantage of the refugee process to threaten the United States,” Cotton said in a statement. “Before moving forward with the president’s plan to expand refugee admissions from Syria, the security screening process for refugees must be evaluated and strengthened where any gaps exist. Furthermore, the United States’ reliance on the United Nations for referrals of Syrian refugees should also be re-evaluated. That reliance unintentionally discriminates against Syrian Christians and other religious minorities who are reluctant to register as refugees with the United Nations for fear of political and sectarian retribution.” 

Given the apparent discrimination against Christian refugees, and the potential for ISIS-linked supporters to infiltrate the United States under the cover of a program that even the FBI says will not fully verify newcomers, it’s little wonder that 26 state governors have called on the administration to stop the program. Republican Governors Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie—all GOP 2016 presidential contenders—have signaled their opposition to resettlement. 

Among these are two Democrats, Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana and Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state. 

Bullock said in a statement that while Montana would welcome Syrian refugees if requested to do so, “if there are safety concerns about any refugees that are requesting settlement, they will be denied.” 

Hassan told the New Hampshire Union-Leader “the federal government should ‘halt acceptance’ of Syrian refugees until U.S. authorities can assure the vetting process keeps Americans safe.”