Ted Cruz, GOP Presidential Contender, Calls Obama's Plan to Allow 10,000 Syrian Refugees Into the U.S. the 'Height of Foolishness'

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz criticized the Obama administration's plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees into the U.S.

On Monday, the Texas senator said in his Michigan campaign stop that President Barack Obama's plan to let Syrian refugees inside the country is "nothing short of crazy," The Guardian reported. Cruz believes that "a significant number" of refugees entering Europe were terrorists from the Islamic State, and that it would be the "height of foolishness" to allow "Syrian Muslims" into America, the news outlet noted.

"There is a reason the director of national intelligence said among those refugees are no doubt a significant number of ISIS terrorists," Cruz told the Michigan crowd, as reported by Yahoo! News. "It would be the height of foolishness to bring in tens of thousands of people including jihadists that are coming here to murder innocent Americans."

Cruz was campaigning ahead of Michigan's March 8 presidential primary, The Guardian noted. The state's Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is talking with federal officials about what they can do to accept more refugees from Syria.

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper said that there are no confirmed cases of terrorists mixing with the refugee surge, Yahoo! News added. But he didn't completely disregard the possibility, which is why the nation is belligerent in screening the small number of Syrian refugees it accepted.

"We don't obviously put it past the likes of ISIL to infiltrate operatives among these refugees," Clapper said last month, as reported by the news outlet. ISIL is the alternative acronym for the Islamic State militant group.

The Obama administration aims to allow about 10,000 Syrian refugees and boost the overall number of refugees accepted into the U.S. from around the world to 85,000 in the next 12 months, Yahoo! News further reported. The country now accepts up to 70,000 refugees annually, and that is expected to rise up to 100,000 by 2017.

Last week, Germany's top security official said that intelligence services were looking out for signs that terrorists were blending with the incoming migrants, but there were no confirmed cases, The Guardian wrote.

Earlier in September, Cruz, along with fellow GOP presidential contender Donald Trump, protested the U.S. deal with Iran. Cruz called the Iran deal "catastrophic" and the "single greatest national security threat facing America," ABC News reported.

Cruz is the son of a Cuban immigrant, Miami Herald noted. The 44-year-old politician supports keeping the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act unchanged, which is a federal law that allows Cubans who migrate to the U.S. to quickly acquire green cards, a privilege that is not offered to other foreign nationals.