On Tuesday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told a New Hampshire radio host that he believes that the quickest way to separate Christian Syrian refugees from Islamic Syrian refugees would be to ask them their names and have a look at their birth certificates.
BuzzFeed reported that Bush told Jack Heath of New Hampshire Today, "(Y)ou can tell when someone is a Christian in the Middle East."
“I can promise you that,” Bush went on. “By name, by where they’re born, their birth certificates. There are ample means by which to know this.”
Bush said last week that the U.S. should prioritize which Syrian refugees the country is willing to accept, beginning with Christians.
“There are a lot of Christians in Syria that have no place now,” Bush said. “They’ll be either executed or imprisoned, either by Assad or by ISIS. And I think we should have -- we should focus our efforts as it relates to the Christians that are being slaughtered.”
President Barack Obama rapped Bush sternly for his remarks, saying that a "religious test" for refugees is not how the United States conducts itself.
“When I hear folks say that well maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war torn country is admitted,” the president said. “When some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful. That’s not American, that’s not who we are.”
Listen to the interview, embedded below:
