Political Quotes

“Mr. President, there is a difference between a refugee who was fully vetted, that America has welcomed historically and should continue to, and we will. We worked for decades to be able to honor refugees and to be able to do our part in what is happening around the world. That same standard for refugees, where an individual is identified, the family is vetted, they go through the process both at the U.N. and through the United States to be able to identify how to be able to help that family, that same definition for ``refugee'' is also used as a definition for ``asylee.'' It is the same definition, but there is a dramatic difference between the two. The refugee has been fully vetted. We know who they are; we know the situation; we know the crisis that their family has gone through; and our Nation, like multiple nations around the world, engages to see what we can do to help that family in trauma. That is who we are as Americans. It is whom we will continue to be. The challenge is when we have thousands of people cross our southern border requesting asylum whom we don't know who they are, who are not vetted, that begin to take advantage of American generosity, and it becomes a challenge for us to be able to filter who really qualifies as a refugee/asylee as they are crossing the border and who is just taking advantage of our system. That is a challenge. It has been a challenge for us for years, but it has dramatically accelerated in the last 3 years.…”