Refugee Crisis: Syrian Family Readily Surrenders at U.S.-Mexico Border
The Department of Homeland Security has confirmed on Sunday that a group of Syrian refugees turned themselves in along the U.S.-Mexico border. The group consisted of a family of three as well as two other men, who were all held to check their identities against the national security database and then turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They will be held for temporary detention.
According to Fox 59, this group came after two Syrian families identified themselves in Laredo on Tuesday. In each of the instances where Syrian refugees surrendered themselves, the men are taken to one detention facility, while women and children are held in another. This is done so as part of a heightened national security concern over many states opposing the federal plan to accept more Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Meanwhile, GOP candidate Donald Trump has been vocal about not ruling out a registry for all Muslims entering the country. Yahoo! quoted Trump: "We have no idea who those people are. When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don't know if they're ISIS, we don't know if it's a Trojan horse." He went on, "And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases."
He also mentioned his skepticism on the statics that showed most of the refugees being women and children. Expressing his concern, Trump said, "When I look at the migration and the lines and I see all strong, very powerful looking men, they're men, and I see very few women, I see very few children, there's something strange going on."
CBS News noted that it is not uncommon for the refugees to end up in American soil through various routes, as hundreds of thousands have fled war-ravaged countries to seek asylum, mostly in the US or in other parts of Europe.
The refugees from last week were found with doctored Greek passports, and were detained in Honduras, although it seems that they have no links to the Paris attacks.
Police spokesman Anibal Baca told Reuters, "We received information from (fellow) police services that these five Syrians left Greece and passed through Turkey, Brazil, Argentina and San Jose in Costa Rica before finally reaching Tegucigalpa. They are normal Syrians."
Despite claims of the majority of the senators opposing the acceptance of thousands more Syrian refugees, the White House has been adamant to show empathy. Are you pro or against the government accepting 10,000 more Syrians in the U.S.?