There is a protest in Tucson Thursday afternoon over Gov. Doug Ducey’s recent comments on Syrian refugees.
On Monday Ducey—and more than a dozen more governors from around the country—said he does not want new refugees to resettle in Arizona. He also called on Congress and President Obama to “immediately amend federal law to provide states greater oversight and authority in the administration of the placement of refugees.”
“These acts serve as a reminder that the world remains at war with radical Islamic terrorists. Our national leaders must react with the urgency and leadership that every American expects to protect our citizens,” he said in a prepared statement earlier in the week.
Needless to say there was some heated backlash, prompting demonstrations, such as the one the Tucson Anti-War Committee is leading Thursday at 4:30 p.m., outside the State of Arizona Building, 400 W. Congress St.
“By claiming he will refuse Syrian refugees, AZ Gov. Doug Ducey is not only threatening to violate Federal law but also threatening the lives of the existing Syrian refugee population here in Arizona and all Muslims and Arabs,” the group says on Facebook. “Thanks to reactionary politicians like Ducey, Russell Pearce, and John Huppenthal and policies like HB 2281 and SB 1070, Arizona already has a climate of racism, hatred, and bigotry. This has provided the conditions for other forms of bigotry such as the white supremacist protest outside a mosque in Phoenix.”
“We Tucsonans will not stand for this hatred and bigotry as this governor attempts to go rogue against Federal law, UN Human Rights, and common human decency,” the group adds. “We will demand the Ducey and all the other racist Governors follow Federal law and peacefully admit refugees from all areas, most urgently from war-torn Syria.”
For more information, visit the protest’s Facebook page.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2015.
It’s called “Obama is all that matters,” and will meet at 10 AM.
Wait a minute…we are a sanctuary city and we violate the federal laws all the time. That doesn’t seem to bother you when you pick and choose laws.
Why not get a job, work hard and help our economy?
When did it become racist to take care of our own before taking care of illegals and refugees? Why take them in when they don’t take care of the homeless? Who is going to be responsible for them if and when something happens?
So, does the Governor also want to prohibit all people from the middle east and any other country that are traveling to the U.S. on visas. After all the Paris terrorists were from France and Belgium, Also, refugees go through a vetting process that takes 18 – 24 months. They don’t just show up the day after they leave Syria. This is nothing but hysterical fear mongering, remember last year when ebola was going spread throughout the country. Whatever happened to that made up crisis?
We cannot afford these refugee’s and furthermore why shouldfeed and house them when we offered to train and arm them so they could fight back and we only had four lousy volunteers. I say let them handle their own chaos, we don’t need or want their problems.
The majority of Tucson’s citizens and their government are very ignorant. You should see how the city spends their money. The streets are falling apart, people live in mobile home parks that look like third world countries. A lot of their restaurants, and apartment buildings are putrid. The city doesn’t have proper health laws. You can see garbage (old containers and old clothing) thrown in ditches around their city streets, and overgrown weeds (which can eventually cause fires in AZ heat). Made a mistake in having a home built in Pima county, and it is built so bad, it should be torn down and rebuilt. They have no proper building codes. I could keep typing, but you should get my drift, people in Tucson are stupid, they don’t know how to take care of anything, not even their own city. Stupid, Stupid.
We should all stop for a minute and weigh in, on the cost of Obama’s compassion.
The president stated in his speech, in regards to the Right wing’s opposition of Syrian refuges to the U.S. ” these are not American values” . What the president failed to mention, was the fact, that compassion is merely one piece of the jigsaw puzzle used in the construction of a great nation.
Compassion most certainly has it’s place, However, Mr. President, there is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
When all the pieces of the puzzle are placed in their proper perspective, the end result is the construction of a great nation. America !
Great place to round up terrorist sympathizers, aka liberal progressives.
We have enough money to take care of our own and veterans and refugees, if we stop giving tax breaks to billionaires and off-shore or out of state corporations which ship jobs elsewhere.
So if it is true that the leaders of ISIS are former officers and soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s military forces, then all these desperate refugees whose homes, cities and lives have been destroyed were destined for this mass exodus a long time ago. If George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer (et al) had not decided to invade Iraq, disband and disperse the Iraqi army, divide the Iraqis into religious factions, give massive political power to Iran and, finally, to create ISIS, there would be no hard decisions for an Arizona governor to make regarding immigrants from Syria. It is fair to consider that the entire Arab Spring, with all its unintended consequences, was precipitated by the invasion of Iraq. And Paris proves that the world is NOT a safer place.
gcb1 – you say we have enough money. Do you realize we are twenty TRILLION in debt, to be charged to your grandchildren.
Thinking_Allowed – funny how you left Hillary out of the list of folks who supported the liberation of Iraq. Ever read the speech she gave on the Senate floor?
In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001.
It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.
Now this much is undisputed.
…
So it is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation. A vote for it is not a vote to rush to war; it is a vote that puts awesome responsibility in the hands of our President and we say to him – use these powers wisely and as a last resort. And it is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein – this is your last chance – disarm or be disarmed.
Hillary Clinton
It was 9 people who brought Paris to its knees. That’s .09% of the 10000 that Obama wants to let it. Not at all unlikely that there will be 9 folks in this group who would engage in jihad and want to meet up with their allotment of virgins. I think the 30+ Republican and Democrat governors who want to proceed slowly and carefully make sense. And the US Govt claims that they will vet the ” refugees”. But this is the same government whose ACA health plan is collapsing. Not unreasonable to wonder about general competency.
Hilary as former senator can speak for herself, as she may choose. But the wheels of power that turned the middle east upside down were operated directly by the GOP administration of G.W. Bush, who not only created ISIS and spreading global mayhem, but also (since the debt was mentioned) refused to ever provide funding for the trillion dollar war, a debt which is still on the books in the red column.
Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Ok well when these refugees come into our city and attacks all, you protesters are going to what , hug them and say No we must show peace and love here.
Please lets not be stupid, and understand this isn’t about not showing compassion or being non American. its about being smart and protecting our state and city. We people here in Arizona already have a huge issue with Cartel and our border, and our wellfare office is over flowing with illegals. Now you wanna protest about not being American, ok well you can open your home to these refugees and see how that works out for you.
Now i am not being racist or discriminating, I’m simply pointing out, that we unfortunately don’t have the time to let our guard down here, we are at war and protecting ourselves is the better choice.
Even if its a small percentage that could be terrorist among those that could enter into our state, but is that small percentage worth the lives of hundreds that could die because of that action. Is your life worth dying for these refugees to enter..
Thinking_Allowed – nice try at blaming America for ISIS – specifically white men.
But ISIS wasn’t in existence until Obama surrendered and ran away from the win that so many of our patriotic Americans fought and died for.
In a study published last year, psychologists tested this idea by approaching women in Tel Aviv to ask their opinions about Israel’s Eritrean immigrants. In some cases, they first described these immigrants as threatening; in others, they did not. Crucially, about half the women interviewed were carrying infants at the time, and about half were alone. Women with babies in tow reported harsher views of immigrants than those without—but only in the condition where the researchers had described them as threats.
We can rehash history and lay blame for the current mess in the Mideast, after all Obama brought on three of then senators who voted to provide authority for the invasion and occupation of Iraq). Two, Clinton and Kerry as secretaries of state and one, Biden, as his vice president). Mea culpas aside, Democrats did in fact assist Bush with a carte blanche approval to invade and the rest is history).
Apparently the fact that the Syrian refugees are fleeing the same terrorists we claim to be fighting is lost on those who live in fear of an onslaught of jihadists mingling with the some of the most desperate people on Earth today. Given the obstacles to making it through the maze of regulations and background checks, this is more than far fetched. It is more likely the next terrorist attack on US soil will be committed by militant Islamists already here than by refugees seeking asylum from the Syrian bloodbath taking place.
Colin Powell once said, to paraphrase, you break it, you own it. We broke the middle east when we invaded Iraq, a bipartisan act of stupidity by the Bush administration with the support of a majority of Democrats including those who have served and continue to serve the Obama administration. We can afford to risk allowing 10,000 Syrians fleeing for their lives a sanctuary from the nightmare we are responsible for.
UPDATE: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has confirmed that eight Syrians were taken into custody at the Laredo port of entry.
But hey, if they only kill christians…
The former Secretary of Defense in Belgium said in an interview this morning regarding the attacks in Paris, “we screwed up. It’s our fault. The Syrian refugees we admitted never assimilated. They had no intention of becoming part of our local communities or adopt our way of life. I don’t believe that any middle easterners can be transplanted or transformed. They have actually established “no go” zones under sharia law where our law enforcement and military do not go into.”
Are we getting different ones? I don’t want to have to live with your regrets as you blindly put our widows and orphans at risk.
152 years ago today:
The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Illegals are human beings.
Refugees are human beings.
How about White American Veterans who don’t want Syrian imports? Am I a human being? Don’t I count?
Your arguments for this are weak. We DON’T have to accept anyone from any other country. Send them to Canada, they accept anybody and everybody now.
Even Americans. Go there and enjoy your liberal, multicultural utopia.
Yes I agree refugees are human beings, they are also terrorists!!!!.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-a-tures/how-gen-david-petraeus-ge_b_8215778.html
The General continually briefed then Sen Obama on this exact thing happening and Obama ignored him.
Funny how the General was destroyed by secret emails and HRC collects donations from her lawbreaking treasonous acts.
Presidential aspirations? God bless Vince Foster. Again.
Glad about Ducey’s efforts to keep Arizonans and illegals safe?
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2015/11/19/isil-apprehensions-prove-ducey-right-for-enhanced-border-security-request/
He is right.
I read through all the comments. I was amazed how ignorant of facts Tucson is. Facts don’t mean a thing anymore, it is the left wing and the right. We have come to believe what the politicians tell us, the propaganda news channels to divde you and me. I think we are done for, or if there is a small glimmer of hope it would be to become educated. Oops, Ducey took our education money. These politicians don’t want you to know facts so you can make a rational opinion, they put up hacks to discuss the talking points.
<3 Rick Spanier
Maybe one day more people will realize the law of cause and effect.
Even George Bush , President #41, admits in a new biography that his son, President 43, was seriously mistaken in his actions in the Middle east – also blaming Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld directly. And now it is coming here: Border Patrol recently captured men from Pakistan and Afghanistan near Patagonia.