Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) stated that the ability of ISIS to infiltrate refugees is “a real problem” and Paris “proves” a terrorist attack against the US “probably will happen” on Saturday’s “Larry Kudlow Show.”
Johnson said, “There is a real problem in terms of the refugee flow, the ability of ISIS to infiltrate those refugee flows, our inability to track them.”
Later in the interview, Johnson said that while “we do not know of a credible threat right now” to the US, “We do not have a secure border on our southern flank. You want a metric on that, Larry? General Barry McCaffrey, former drug czar said we’re only interdicting 5 to 10% of illegal drugs coming in through the southern border, only 11 to 18% through our maritime borders. So, we have got to get serious and be committed to securing our border, not just because of the illegal immigration problem, but because of national security, and public health and safety. And we just have not as a nation committed ourselves to that, because we’re just ignoring this. We’re saying, oh, this will never happen. Well, Paris proves that this can happen, and it probably will happen.”
He further declared that he didn’t have a clue why people wanted to let in Syrian refugees, and that the solution should be to solve the genocide in Syria.
Earlier, Johnson stated that while “we don’t know” exactly what happened in Paris, “The threat of Islamic terror is growing. It’s not receding. President Obama is wrong. ISIS is not contained.”
He added, “you can’t call ISIS the JV team. You can’t say that they’re contained. Sure, we’ve had some success, but we have not defeated them. We’re not even close to defeating them, because we have not made the commitment as a nation, as a civilized world, we haven’t made that commitment yet. We’re turning — we are turning our face away from it. We’re saying, well, that’s in Syria, let the Arabs take care of it themselves. They’re not going to.”
Johnson also said, “Our intelligence gathering capabilities — we don’t have the capability to follow these individuals, these barbarians as they plan these attacks.” He later added, “even with the most first class intelligence gathering capability, technology has moved beyond our capability of completely tracking these folks.” He also argued, in reference to the end of the NSA’s bulk data collection, “I’m a strong civil libertarian, I want to protect our civil liberties, but take a look at the people in France right now. Do you think — how are their civil liberties being protected now?” Johnson further said the balance between civil liberties and security has to shift more towards security.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.