With assurances that there are no Islamic State agents included in the massive flood of Syrian refugees, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Tuesday he can't support allowing them into the United States.
"I can't support a policy that would allow a jihadist pipeline into the United States," the Texas Republican told
Fox News' "Fox and Friends" program. "We've read their documents themselves when they talk about exploiting the refugee issue to get into the United States."
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Federal and intelligence officials are very compassionate on the issue, McCaul said, and he thinks the migration is a "tragedy of extraordinary proportions," but at the same time, "we've got to do this thing right. [Bringing] thousands of Syrians into the United States, not knowing who they are, I think would be very irresponsible."
McCaul is holding a committee meeting at New York City's 9/11 Museum, and will hear from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday to talk about the events of the massive terrorism attacks, and told Fox News that there will also be discussion about today's threats.
There is argument that the threat of terrorism died with Osama bin Laden, but he believes the threat "has gotten worse, not better," as there is a new generation of terrorists now who are sophisticated with the use of the Internet to activate followers worldwide.
"This is not over," said McCaul. "We've arrested over 60 ISIS followers in the last year, more than one per week [and there are] 200,000 ISIS tweets per day."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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