In an interview yesterday with Jan Mickelson, the Iowa radio host who recently offered a spirited defense of slavery, Rick Santorum said that it is time that the U.S. get tough on Muslim refugees seeking asylum in the U.S., alleging that the Obama administration is bringing in “radical Muslims” and LGBT refugees into America as part of the president’s plan to remake the country and undermine cultural values.
After Mickelson asked Santorum if America “should be importing Islam,” Santorum said he would do away with immigration laws which he says favor “immigrants from countries that we do not have a lot of immigrants from, and a vast majority of them are Muslim countries.”
The GOP presidential candidate also said that he would oppose the United Nations if it tries to resettle Muslim refugees in the U.S., claiming that if elected he would take “Christians and Jews” fleeing the the Middle East because they are “being most persecuted” in countries like Iraq and Syria. Santorum went on to repeat the debunked claim that the administration is discriminating against non-Muslim refugees while trying to “bring in folks who are potential radical Islamic sympathizers.”
“They believe that America will be better off if we bring in people that are nothing like and share none of the values of what made America a unique and great country,” he said. “And let’s be honest, if you look at radical Islam, it’s about as antithetical to the American first principles to anything you’d want to see, but in President Obama’s mind, that’s a good thing for America because, of course, America is flawed and America needs to be changed and needs to be more influenced by these other cultures and other religions.”
The former Pennsylvania senator eventually made his way to attacking the administration for giving asylum to LGBT people fleeing hostile nations: “If you look at who Barack Obama has put in the State Department and the kind of efforts that they have ongoing, it’s not just radical Muslims but they are also taking — one of their highest priorities is to take people who are persecuted because of their gender identity, that’s another area that the president has focused on and making sure that we bring people into this country.”
