Refugees. Several members of congress are calling on the white house to halt plans to allow tens of thousands of refugees into the United States over the next 12 months. We are asking our viewers to weigh in on that question. Should the u. S. Close its borders to Syrian Refugees . Our phone lines are open if you want to join us for this discussion. Democrats can call in at [indiscernible] democrats can call in at 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7848001. Independents, 202 7488002. You can also find us on facebook, twitter, or email. A very good monday morning to you. Most major papers leading with the news about france hitting targets in syria. France targeting isis militants in syria. Below that on the front page of the usa today, the debate on Syrian Refugees is playing out. White house and congress clash over Syrian Refugees is the headline. He Washington Post the front page of the washington times. Obama, u. S. Still open to refugees. We are talking about this debate over Syrian Refugees. It played out on the sunday shows yesterday. Ben rhodes is the Deputy National security advisor to the white house. He was asked if the president was reconsidering his plan to allow Syrian Refugees into the United States. [video clip] we are still planning to take in Syrian Refugees. We have very robusta vetting procedures for those refugees. It involves intelligence, national counterterror, extensive interviews. What we need to be able to do is sort out those people who have gone into syria and come out and want to launch attacks or those who have had connections with isil in syria. At the same time, we have to recognize, there are tragic victims of this conflict. There are orphans of this war. We need to provide them a safe haven. Host lawmakers on capitol hill and state chief executives are concerned about Syrian Refugees entering the United States in light of the paris attacks. Heres a statement from alabamas governor. I will oppose any attempt to refugees toian alabama through the u. S. Refugee admissions program. Governor rick snyder in michigan. He is quoted by fox affiliate in a story there. Members of Congress Also waiting in weighing in. Michael mccaul is one of the chief National Security voices. He was on meet the press yesterday. [video clip] there are a lot of gaping holes. There are a lot of foreign fighters. Fighters000 foreign that have traveled to the region and come back. Hundreds of americans have traveled and many have come back , as well. I think that is a direct threat. When you get to the syrian refugee issue, we think two of these terrorists were actually Syrian Refugees. This causes a grave concern. We dont want to be complicit with a program that could bring in potential terrorists into the United States. I disagree with ben rhodes. I have been briefed by the fbi and Homeland Security and they tell me this cannot be properly done. Noted that there is no international database. The report actually blames europe, that there is not enough cooperation with some of our european allies. Can this get up and running fast . It has to. France is ahead of the curve because they know with the threat really is. The European Parliament needs to pass legislation. You can fly in from istanbul airport in turkey where the foreign fighters go and not even be checked past the watchlist in europe. When you talk about visa waiver , that is where the homeland gets implicated. Host congressman Michael Mccaul , chairman of the Homeland Security committee. Members of congress sending out tweets over the weekend expressing their concerns. Candice miller. Marsha blackburn, republican of tennessee. Lou barletta, also a member of the Homeland Security committee. As we said, the investigation into those attacks is still early and ongoing, but the piece of evidence that has sparked much of this concern stems from a syrian passport being found by one of the dead militants. That greecenoting has confirmed that that country was crossed through the eastern agn island of aegean island of leros. That is what caused some of this concern this weekend. This will be playing out on capitol hill when congress returns. The house and senate expected to be in later today. Eric is up first in hyattsville, maryland. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller my comment is that the United States of america is a very, very generous country. You know. I think that the duty of the president is first to defend the constitution and the citizens of this country. And oneve 99 good ones who can be a terrorist, is it because the a risk president wanted to satisfy his political agenda . We dont even know how many illegals we have here. Im very concerned. Im very concerned. Thank you very much. Is up next in gaithersburg, maryland. Democrats line. Caller good morning. Thanks for allowing me to make a comment. I believe that the refugees that we should still have a program to allow them into the country. I recognize that terrorists can slip in through refugees, as they can in a variety of ways. Crisis that the refugee was not caused because terrorists were plotting, but by a civil war caused in syria. Thatow that 100 hundreds of thousands of people are being displaced. We should not turn our backs on them because evil people are doing things. Host dan is up next. Caller how are you doing . Host good. Caller i thought that bill clinton was the worst president weve ever had. Obama is 20 times worse. Are aboutot kill c the American People. There is no need for me to repeat what the person already said. It is insane. What about American People . How much money is this going to cost in medicaid, welfare, food stamps. Is anyone thinking about housing . Who is going to pay . You and i will. It is a sad day in our country. The rest of the world laughs at us. Hillary clinton is just an extension. We need donald trump. Someone with a backbone and someone who is not spineless. Host you mentioned Hillary Clinton. This issue of what to do about the massive amount of Syrian Refugees fleeing that country came up in the democratic debate on saturday night. Here is a bit from Hillary Clintons answer when she was asked about what the United States should do about Syrian Refugees. [video clip] i think that is the number one requirement. I said that we should take increased numbers of refugees. The administration said 10, i said we should go to 65. But only if we have as careful screening process as we can imagine. I do not want us to inadvertently allow people who wish us harm to come into our country. Host that question played out in several parts of that debate on saturday night, happening just a day after those attacks in paris. Should the United States close its borders to Syrian Refugees . Give you a sense of the scale of the crisis in europe. Those fleeing and trying to get into europe. The Eastern Mediterranean route 359,000 people trying to get through borders in europe from january through september of this year. The top nationalities using that Eastern Mediterranean route, syrians making up the bulk of that. 240 9000 people from january to 000 people from9, january to september. The number of syrian asylum applications to france on a monthly basis. The numbers creeping up from 20082009 and spiking with the course of the syrian civil war. You can see those two charts. The number on the left, using the Eastern European route. Loretto is up in ohio. The line for independents. Caller good morning. I dont think we should bring the syrians here. It is not syrians it is the people that follow the koran. If they follow the koran, they are raised to hate the christians and the jews. ,f we have to bring immigrants why dont we bring the christians that they are cutting their heads off and make this a Christian Country again . As far as bedding them, they tting them, ve they cannot vet the tsa workers. They did not even know their first names. 73 of them was associated with terrorist groups. If we have to bring somebody here, let it be the christians they are killing in camps over there. Host how do you do that . Is it just a question of asking them whether they are christian or muslim . How do you figure that out . , if they would say follow the koran, they are out to kill us. They are everywhere. They showed a map of the muslims that are over here already. They are just biding their time. It will happen here. They hate us. The ones that follow the koran. It does not matter where they come from. If they follow the koran, they hate us. Why should we bring them over here. You know good and well they could not even vet the tsa workers. Host loretto in ohio. The Washington Post story about the syrian refugee crisis. Several president ial candidates have called for Christian Refugees to receive different treatment than muslim refugees. We are going to keep taking your calls. Robert is in washington dc on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you. Allow me to clarify something. Might raise some eyebrows here. I am a republican in terms of family values, in terms of values in fiscal policy. That the syrians or any refugees should be placed right there in syria. There is a big space. [indiscernible] believe that we take the people who are and so on. The reason for this is that the United States and europe [indiscernible] host robert, youre going in and out a little bit. Robert. Before we lose you, your first point, were you saying we dont need to bring syrians into the United States, but do a better job of creating safe spaces within syria . Caller in saudi arabia. Emirs. The amir especially the kingdoms we protect, like saudi arabia. The United States when i blame on this situation is u. S. And european for a policy. T remember that [indiscernible] people are going to react sooner or later. They will do a terrible thing. There are things that [indiscernible] host robert, you are going in and out again. We mentioned some of the republican president ial candidates who have been commenting on this issue. One of those was ben carson on fox news yesterday. He was asked about this yesterday. [video clip] bringing people into this country from that area of the world is a huge mistake. Why wouldnt they infiltrate them with people who are ideologically opposed to us . It would be foolish for them not to do that. We need to be very compassionate , understand that these people have been displaced, and we should use our expertise and resources to get them resettled over there and to support them over there, but to bring them here, under these circumstances is a suspension of intellect. The reason the human brain has isse big frontal lobes because we can engage in rational thought processing. We can extract information from the past, present process it and projected into a plan. Animals have big brain stems and rudimentary things because we react. We dont have to just react. We can think. Host a few tweets that have been coming in over the course of our show already. We cannot allow open borders. That would be dangerous and crazy. Muslim countries should take them in. The u. S. Should have borders closed now, as soon as possible. We already showed you tweets from members of congress. We are expected to have them back in session later today, both the house and the senate. This issue will likely be a topic of conversation. It will be a formal topic of conversation and a subcommittee hearing that has been scheduled for this coming thursday. There is a hearing on thursday on the syrian refugee crisis and u. S. Security,r as noted by usa today. Michael is up next in fredericksburg, virginia. Independents line. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. It is a very unfortunate situation, what the syrians are growing going through. We also have to protect our borders and make sure that our allies in the middle east take those refugees in. Syrianve not taken one refugees and their economies are built on migrant workers. The syrians would be able to integrate very easily. If not, the idea of a safe haven within syria. At the end of this war, there will be many syrias and there should be a protected area, where the syrians can live peacefully. I voted for obama and i have been so disappointed because everything he has said about isis has been wrong. If you look at how much territory they have, the economy, and it is islamic. It is very islamic. There is no Political Correctness about this. If you talk about who is drawn therefrom the west, which people leave their countries and they go to serve in a caliphate, what they believe is going to be a caliphate, they are taking a very literal explanation of his and they arelam abiding by it. Please call your congressman and say you do not want to take in Syrian Refugees, you want to but obamaituation, and the state department with Hillary Clinton as the head has done a terrible job. I cannot trust her and i cannot trust obama with anything they have done in the middle east. Host are you still with us . Caller yes, im. Host your thoughts on which one of the candidates is saying the right things on this issue. Do you think this will be a key issue for the election . Guest i think the security caller i think the security of be aorders is going to huge issue. Anyone who is going to secure do a reals and vetting process for immigration is going to get my vote. I think donald trump says things bombastic late and it is a little too much, but he is the one who brought this issue on the table. More Current Events are showing that it is an issue. Rand paul, i like rand paul. I think we need to do things differently with our immigration policy. We have a very peaceful muslim population. We dont want to radicalize our muslim population. Problem that the france and other countries have. Why would we jeopardize our security . Host that is michael in fredericksburg, virginia. On theighing in editorial page of the Washington Post today is former republican president ial candidate mitt romney. He writes in his piece that it is clear. On to say that the west must stop the insanity of welcoming hundreds of thousands of people from the middle east. Women, children, and the elderly, perhaps. Several of those on twitter. Ollowing the conversation we have about a half hour left. We are asking our viewers to weigh in. Close the United States its borders to Syrian Refugees. Doug is in florida on the democrats line. Caller i have a novel idea. Lets take all of the mail refugees, 1550, train them, armed them, and stick them back to defend their own country. Florida. T is doug in we will get back to your calls in just a minute. We have a frequent voice on this program to help us. Good morning. Has this shaken up the schedule for congress this coming week . How will they be dealing with a terrorist attacks . Guest it is good to be with you. So far, we have not seen the kind of scheduling announcements or changes that one might expect in the wake of an event like the terror attacks in paris. That is partly because congress was on recess when the incident happened. I think that what is going to be happening and what your viewers can look forward to, as can lawmakers and their staffs, is that there is going to be a fairly quick succession of scheduling of hearings, both in the house and the senate, both open and closed sessions, as is customary in these matters. The Senate Intelligence committee, for instance, meets regularly every tuesday and thursday afternoon anyway enclosed session. One would expect that the terror attacks in paris and the response and the actions that have been taking place throughout europe over the weekend are going to be first and foremost on the agenda for the Intelligence Committee on tuesday. You should expect no shortage of other briefings and hearings related to that. As for the floor schedule, we have not seen some sort of or any sort of immediate reaction, in terms of changing the floor schedule as a result. However, one of the items that had been rumored for consideration in the senate for a test vote at some point this week there is a rumor that was advanced by democrats that there is a possibility that there could be legislation regarding immigration sanctuary cities, which are those communities that dont necessarily enforce all federal immigration laws. I think that if that is the term that is taken, there would be more debate about the question you were talking about. Host one issue that congress has very much been involved in is Guantanamo Bay, cuba, the the white house efforts to shut the prison down. The pentagon transferred five yemeni detainees who had been held for more than a decade Guantanamo Bay to the united arab emirates. That was announced yesterday. Do you think congress will be picking up on this issue this coming week . Guest the guantanamo issue has had a group ofas republican lawmakers that have already been very engaged, themcularly the three of are senator tim scott from south carolina, senator pat roberts from kansas, and cory gardner from c