The Obama administration has been escalating a policy that both abandons Mideast Christians and exposes Americans to the jihad.
Late last year it was revealed that 97% of Syrian refugees accepted into the U.S. were Sunni Muslims — the same Islamic sect to which the Islamic State belongs— while fewer than half-a-percent were Christians.
This disparity has since gotten worse. From May 1 to May 23, 499 Syrian refugees — a number that exceeds the total number of refugees admitted during the last three years — were received into the United States. Zero Christians were among them; 99 percent were Sunni (the remaining one percent was simply listed as "Muslim").
These numbers are troubling.
First, from a strictly humanitarian point of view — and humanitarian reasons are the chief reason being cited in accepting refugees — Christians should receive priority simply because currently they are among the most persecuted groups in the Middle East. Along with the Yazidis, Christians are experiencing genocide at the hands of ISIS, as the State Department recently determined. The Islamic State has repeatedly forced Christians to renounce Christ or die; has enslaved and raped them, and desecrated or destroyed more than 400 of their churches.
As Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) put it this March, "Without doubt, Syrians of all confessions are being victimized by this savage war and are facing unimaginable suffering. But only Christians and other religious minorities are the deliberate targets of systematic persecution and genocide."
Sunni Muslims are not being slaughtered, beheaded, and raped for refusing to renounce their faith; they are not having their mosques burned, nor are they being jailed and killed for apostasy, blasphemy, or proselytization. On the contrary, non-ISIS affiliated Sunnis are responsible for committing dozens of such atrocities against Christian minorities every single month all throughout the Islamic world.[1]
Unsurprisingly, many Sunnis entering America and Europe — including the terrorists who killed 120 people in Paris, 32 people in Brussels, and 12 in California — share the same Sunni-sanctioned hate for and opposition to non-Muslim "infidels." Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admits that ISIS is "taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow."
Even if one were to operate under the assumption that refugee status must be made available to all Syrians, regardless of religion, the simple demographics of Syria expose the pro-Sunni, anti-Christian bias of the current Obama refugee policy: Christians account for 10% of Syria's total population — yet they account for less than 0.5% of the refugees received into America. Sunni Muslims are 74% of Syria's population — yet 99% of those received into America. In other words, there should be 20 times more Christians and about one-quarter fewer Sunnis granted refugee status than there already have been.
Finally, the excuse given by those who defend this disparity rings totally false: According to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, Christian and other minorities "fear that registration might bring retribution from other refugees." So supposedly they do not register and are left out of the process. As ongoing reports reveal, however, the majority of those at refugee camps — Sunnis — are persecuting the Christians in their midst, sometimes killing them. During one Mediterranean crossing from Libya to Sicily, Muslim "refugees" shouted "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is the Greatest!"] as they hurled as many as 53 Christians overboard.
 Migrants arrive by boat in Italy after crossing from Libya. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Vito Manzari) |
Although the U.N. and U.S. know that Sunni refugees are terrorizing Christians in their camps, they abandon the true victims who deserve sanctuary in the West, while "humanitarianly" taking in their persecutors.
The Catholic Church and several mainline Protestant denominations are equally guilty. Most recently, "Christian refugees [were] 'let down' by Pope [Francis]: he promised to take them to Italy but then took only Muslims instead."
Such hypocrisy has been on open display since recent the problem of the U.S. accepting refugees from the Middle East arose. Months ago, Barack Obama — who was raised a Sunni Muslim — described the proposal that preference should be given to Christian minorities as "shameful": "That's not American. That's not who we are. We don't have religious tests to our compassion," he said loftily.
Today, however, it is clear from the statistics alone that there is a very clear bias[2] in the refugee program: it favors those most prone to committing acts of terror in America while ignoring those experiencing genocide. It is the Obama administration's own refugee policies that are "shameful," "not American," and do not represent "who we are."
Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).
[1] Even before ISIS' new "caliphate" was established, Christians were and continue to be targeted by Muslims— Muslim mobs, Muslim individuals, Muslim regimes, and Muslim terrorists, from Muslim countries of all races (Arab, African, Asian, etc.) — and for the same reason: Christians are infidel number one. See Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians for hundreds of anecdotes before the rise of ISIS as well as the Muslim doctrines that create such hatred and contempt for Christians who are especially deserving of refugee status.
[2] These recent revelations of the Obama administration's pro-Muslim and anti-Christian policies fit a clear and established pattern of religious bias within his administration. Examples follow:
- When inviting scores of Muslim representatives, the State Department is in the habit of denying visas to solitary Christian representatives.
- When a few persecuted Iraqi Christians crossed the border into the U.S., they were thrown in prison for several months and then sent back to the lion's den.
- When the Nigerian government waged a strong offensive against Boko Haram, killing some of its jihadi terrorists, Secretary of State John Kerry called for the "human rights" of the jihadis, who regularly slaughter and rape Christians and burn their churches. More recently, Kerry "urged Tajikistan not to go overboard in its crackdown on Islam."
- When persecuted Coptic Christians planned on joining Egypt's anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution of 2013, the U.S. said no.
- When persecuted Iraqi and Syrian Christians asked for arms to join the opposition fighting ISIS, D.C. refused.
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