Washington: President Barack Obama has angrily rejected calls by Republican presidential candidates – and echoed by Rupert Murdoch – that the US accept only Christian refugees fleeing Islamic State.
"Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians," Mr Murdoch tweeted on Monday evening in the US, as news broke that up to 30 US states were opposing the settlement of Syrian refugees.
Over the weekend presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Senator Ted Cruz suggested that Christian refugees should be given priority over Muslims fleeing the horrors of IS in Syria and Iraq, a suggestion angrily rejected by President Barack Obama during a press conference at the G20 meeting in Turkey.
"President Obama and Hillary Clinton's idea that we should bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America – it is nothing less than lunacy," Senator Cruz said on Fox News the day after the attacks on Paris.
Syrian Muslims fleeing IS should be resettled in "majority Muslim countries", he said.
"On the other hand Christians who are being targeted for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them. But President Obama refuses to do that," Senator Cruz said.
Speaking at a campaign event the following day, he said: "There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror."
Also on Sunday, Mr Bush told CNN that America should focus on accepting Christian rather than Muslim refugees.
Obama facing enormous opposition in accepting refugees. Maybe make special exception for proven Christians.— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch)
November 16, 2015
During an hour-long press conference in Turkey in which he was repeatedly forced to defend his administration's strategy to counter the threat from IS, the only time Mr Obama appeared angry was when he rejected these suggestions.
"That's not American. It's not who we are. We don't add religious tests to our compassion," he said.
"The values that we are defending, the values that we're fighting against ISIL for, are precisely that we don't discriminate against people because of their faith," he said
"We don't kill people because they're different than us. That's what separates us from them. And we don't feed that kind of notion that somehow Christians and Muslims are at war."
Apparently referring to Mr Bush's comments, Mr Obama mentioned his brother, former president George W. Bush.
"I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam," he said. "And the notion that some of those who have taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that, that's not who we are."
The Obama administration is standing by its plan to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees, noting that refugees are already subjected to more vetting than any other category of immigrant.
Many state governors signalled their opposition to settling refugees via Twitter or media statements on Monday.
"As Governor, I will oppose Syrian refugees being located to Arkansas," Governor Asa Hutchinson wrote to his followers.
In a statement, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said he reached his decision "after full consideration of this weekend's attacks of terror on innocent citizens in Paris ... I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm's way."
"I just signed an executive order instructing state agencies to take all available steps to stop the relocation of Syrian refugees to [Louisiana]," the Louisiana Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal tweeted.
"I would say 'no' as of right now," Charlie Baker, Governor of the traditionally progressive state of Massachusetts, told reporters on Monday. "No, I'm not interested in accepting refugees from Syria."
It is not clear that the states have the legal authority to prevent the settlement of refugees admitted to the US, but they may be able to prevent them from accessing any crucial state support.
Even as he spoke, another Republican presidential contender sought to one-up his rivals. The former Arkansas governor and pastor Mike Huckabee tweeted that if he did not lead an effort to ban Syrian refugees from the US, Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, should be forced from his office.
Also during his address in Turkey, Mr Obama sought to defend his administration's strategy against IS, insisting it would not deploy US ground troops to the region in an effort to look "tough".
"It is not just my view, but the view of my closest military and civilian advisers that that would be a mistake," he said.
"Not because our military could not march into Mosul or Raqqa or Ramadi and temporarily clear out ISIL, but because we would see a repetition of what we've seen before which is if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance, and who are pushing back against ideological extremes that they resurface."
Instead, he defended his administration's current strategy and vowed to intensify it – supporting opposition forces on the ground with training, weapons and intelligence while conducting air strikes from above.
Only by finding a political solution to the war in Syria could the chaos be ended and IS stifled, and there was finally agreement on this course, he said.
