Demagogueing the Syrian refugee crisis

Several Republican presidential candidates, most notably Donald Trump, have been engaging in demagoguery on the Syrian refugee crisis.  Trump says, if any Syrian refugees are in the U.S. when he becomes president, he will send them home immediately because they could be terrorists.

At first hearing, that sounds like a real concern;  and I'm sure the more paranoid, conspiracy-minded among us would latch on to that and never listen to any other side of the story.   But for more reasonable people, here is the other side.

1.  The U.N. has said that about 400,000 Syrians registered in its refugee camps need to be resettled, and it's from that group that the U.S. would take refugees into our country.

2.  Priorities for resettlement would go to torture victims, people with serious medical illnesses, children and teens on their own, and women and children at risk.   None of those sound like terrorists, do they?

3.  The resettlement process takes a long time and involves background screening.  As Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said:

"That doesn't make for an efficient method of terrorizing the United States. . . . Instead of sitting around hoping you win the refugee lottery and then wait years, then pass the background screening to get to America, it would be much easier for a terrorist group to send a person through Europe or put them onto an airplane to the United States."

4.  PolitiFact has rated Donald Trump's alarmist statement "False."

But it's those false statements that the demagogues are so fond of, because they rile people up and make them want to vote for you just because you pounded your chest and boasted that you would "send them home immediately."   Black/white over-simplification and boastful solutions are their stock in trade of demagogues.  Don't be fooled by them.  

Ralph