It seems that Donald Trump plans to show some bias when it comes to which refugees he intends to let into the United States. Depending on your religion, you could have first dibs at entering the “Land of the Free.”
In an interview Friday, Trump said that persecuted Christians seeking to enter the United States will be given priority over other refugees.
“If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair,” said Trump of Syrian Christians who tried to enter the United States. “Everybody was persecuted, in all fairness — but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them.”
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, of the 12,600 Syrians granted refugee status last year, 99% were Muslim and less than 1% were Christian. Syria’s population is 87% Muslim and 10% Christian. Trump did not offer any evidence of why the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department would have prioritized Muslim refugees over Christians. In fact, according to Pew, the United States admitted a record number of 38,901 Muslim refugees in 2016. 37,521 Christians, nearly the same number, were also admitted.
Trump’s statement about prioritizing Christian Syrian’s contradicts one of his latest executive orders. Just this week the President put a freeze on refugee admissions from Syria and other Muslim countries.
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