ATLANTA—Some Republicans are pushing back against aggressive opposition in their party to Syrian refugees resettling in the U.S., offering fresh evidence of a rift within the GOP that could complicate the party’s outreach to minorities heading into the 2016 presidential contest.
These Republicans have joined Democrats who liken the refugee backlash to the U.S. government turning away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and placing Japanese in internment camps during World War II. While conservatives cite security concerns following the Paris attacks that may have involved Syrian refugees, others in the party fear the GOP’s position in Congress and state capitals across the country reeks of xenophobia.
“A refugee is someone who has a credible fear that they’re going to be killed,” said Alfonso Aguilar, a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration and now leads the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. “To close the door reminds me of FDR not letting Jews land in the U.S. during the years of Nazi Germany. Where are they going to go?”
Aguilar said moderate voters who hold outsized influence in general elections could view Republican opposition as extreme and intolerant. He warned that could haunt the GOP in next fall’s general election. But Republicans pressing for a pause in the refugee influx see a need to be mindful, too, about fears of an attack on U.S. soil days after the deadliest assault in France in 70 years.
None of the suspects identified so far in the Paris attacks is a Syrian refugee and the German interior minister says the Syrian migrant passport found at the scene is likely a fake.
Yet a number of GOP presidential candidates, governors and Senate Republicans have issued calls to delay or stop accepting Syrian refugees. Legislation introduced by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a GOP presidential candidate, could allow Republicans to block President Barack Obama’s goal of bringing 10,000 more Syrian refugees to the U.S. during the current budget year.
“Filling your country up with people who have a completely different belief system ... and expecting they won’t rise up against their benefactor is foolish,” Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a leading immigration hardliner, said in an interview Tuesday. He added that no refugees should be permitted into the U.S. from Syria “unless they be Christian refugees that are facing genocide.”
That’s exactly the kind of message Republican leaders hoped to avoid after a disastrous 2012 election in which minority voters shunned GOP candidates in near record numbers. While there are few Muslim voters in America, the pointed Republican resistance against Muslim refugees comes as party leaders try to win over other minority groups.
The Republican National Committee outlined a series of recommendations after the last presidential contest calling for a more welcoming and inclusive tone on divisive issues such as immigration.
“The perception that the GOP does not care about people is doing great harm to the party and its candidates on the federal level, especially in presidential years,” the RNC’s Growth and Opportunity report found. “It is a major deficiency that must be addressed.”
