As President Obama pushes forward with his plan to accept thousands of Syrian refugees following the Paris terror attacks, a majority of Americans want the U.S. to block migrants entering the homeland from Syria.
A Bloomberg Politics national poll released Wednesday that was conducted in the aftermath of the Paris attacks found that 53 percent of American adults believe that the best approach for the U.S. to deal with refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria would be to not accept them. A strong majority of 69 percent of Republicans want the U.S. to block the Syrian refugees, while only 36 percent of Democrats agree.
In contrast, only 28 percent want the Obama administration to push forward with its plan to admit at least 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year without religious screening. Moreover, less than half of Democrats support the continued acceptance of Syrian refugees after the terror attacks in Paris.
More than half of the nation’s governors, most of them Republican, have moved to stop the flow of Syrian refugees into their respective states. Still, President Obama has insisted that the U.S. will continue to accept the refugees, slamming Republicans for suggesting that they pose a security threat.
Concern over the safety of the refugee resettlement program comes after French authorities concluded that one of the Paris suicide bombers entered Europe with a fake Syrian passport posing as a refugee.
The poll, conducted between Nov. 15 and 17, also indicated that a majority of Americans now disapprove of the job that Barack Obama is doing as president. U.S. adults also rate terrorism and the Islamic State, the terror group that claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, as the top issue facing our country today.
Americans are split on the idea of sending U.S. troops to Iraq or Syria to combat the Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIL or ISIS), with 44 percent believing we should send ground forces and 45 percent disagreeing. Likewise, U.S. adults are undecided on whether the U.S. has done enough to protect against Paris-like terror attacks on U.S. soil.
In a video released Monday, IS threatened attacks on the U.S., particularly Washington, and other countries participating in air strikes against the terror group in the Middle East.