Dick Durbin: “there is also a question about what we can do to keep our country safe in terms of people coming into our country. Each…”

“there is also a question about what we can do to keep our country safe in terms of people coming into our country. Each year we admit about 70,000 refugees from all over the world. The No. 1 country providing refugees to the United States--Burma. Most people wouldn't have guessed that. About one-fourth of our refugees come from Burma. How do they get into the United States as refugees? They are first identified by the United Nations Council on Refugees, and then they start a process, a background check and process. This goes on for 18 months to 24 months. It involves repetitive fingerprinting and checking, interviews, examinations, questions. Then, finally, after 24 months, they may be allowed to come to the United States as a refugee. About 70,000 a year come into our country. I have met a lot of them. They are from all over the world--Africa, Asia, all over the world. And now we have a focus on them, a laserlike focus on them. Some are arguing that the way to keep America safe is to stop refugees from coming in from Syria. Well, we know Syria has been engaged in a civil war for more than 4 years. We know some 4 million people have been displaced. I was in Greece a few weeks back and saw numbers coming across the Aegean Sea from Turkey into Greece. These Syrian and some Iraqi refugees are desperate people. You literally see a family walking--mother, father, carrying babies, walking toddlers-- with all that they own on their backs. That is it.…”