NC Billboard: ‘Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor,’ but ‘Keep Your Syrian Refugees’

A billboard in Murphy, North Carolina, reads, “Give me your tired, your poor,” then adds, “Keep your Syrian refugees.”

The billboard is sponsored by Cherokee Guns, which is also located in Murphy.

ABC 13 spoke to Cherokee Guns’ “Doc” about the billboard, and he told the outlet he “didn’t put the billboard up on any kind of hate type bias.” Rather, “it was just something that was [his] opinion … what’s going on in the world today.” Doc said he believes that “we really need to take care of our own before we take care of all these refugees.”

Breitbart News spoke with Doc on December 2, and he expounded, saying:

I’ve been called a “hate monger” and a “racist” for putting up the billboard, but the billboard has nothing to do with any of that. First of all, I’m married to a Canadian who came into the country and did it the right way. And my kid is from China, who came into the country and did it the right way. So the racist-based name-calling won’t work with me.

The billboard is an expression of my personal belief. ISIS will infiltrate the Syrian population and come into this country–and they will kill us once they get here.

And when the President tells us that the Syrian refugees will be vetted, I don’t believe a word he says. It’s right up there with “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” and “your premiums are going down.” It’s like Obama telling us ISIS is contained just before Paris gets attacked. Anything he says, I don’t believe it. I go exactly opposite.

So he’s telling me these people are vetted. That means to me we better watch out.

Doc went on to stress that we have American veterans who need help, and they should be helped before refugees in Syria. He said, “We’ve got homeless people and needy people, and they need to come first before these people from another country that is war-torn.”

Doc cited another problem he has with accepting Syrian refugees into this country–namely, such a low percentage of them are Christian. He said, “Only 3 percent of the refugees are Christians. It’s harder to get into this country as a Christian than it is a Muslim. Last I checked, this country was founded on God and Jesus, not Allah or Muhammad.”

It is interesting to note that FactCheck.org actually shows that the number of Christian refugees allowed in the country between fiscal year 2011 and November 20, 2015, was “2.7 percent”–slightly less than the “3 percent” Doc cited.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.