Gov. Bruce Rauner joined dozens of governors who announced they would be temporarily closing their state borders to Syrian refugees.
Congressman John Shimkus (R-15) supports Rauner’s position and spoke out about the recent attacks in Paris highlighting the “need to suspend refugee resettlement in the United States”.
While stating that he was sympathetic to the people of France, “our friends and oldest allies," Shimkus agreed that temporarily halting the migration of Syrian refugees into the state is the right thing to do.
“I agree with Governor Rauner’s decision not to accept refugees in Illinois,” said Shimkus. “We want to be compassionate to the innocent among them, but it’s naïve to think that terrorists could not exploit our inability to adequately screen them all. The best thing we could to for the refugees is to defeat the Islamic State and negotiate a cease fire in the Syrian civil war that forced them out of their homes in the first place.”
In comment made to the Madison County Record, Shimkus spokesperson Jordan Haverly also said that expressed that Shimkus believes the state should wait “until we can guarantee with one hundred percent certainty that there are no terrorists among them [refugees]”.
When asked about Shimkus’s thoughts on screening refugees based on religion, Haverly told the Madison County Record, “He [Shimkus’] believes priority should be given to oppressed religious minorities.”