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Muslim Congressman On Syrian Refugees: 'We Should Treat People The Same'

"I’m telling you, these folks are letting fear make them forget the Constitution, and they shouldn’t do it."
Nadya Agrawal
By 

Guest Writer

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) defended Syrian refugees Wednesday against lawmakers who say they shouldn't enter the U.S. in the wake of the Paris attacks.

When asked on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" how to help refugees while keeping Americans safe, Ellison said, "We should not alter who we are and what we do based on what Daesh is trying to do."

Daesh is another term for the Islamic State, or ISIS. The terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Friday assault in Paris, which left 129 dead.

"We should bolster our process, we should improve it as we go, but I don’t think we should signal to Daesh or anyone that we’re going to set up a whole new set of rules to vet people who are Muslim. We should treat people the same," Ellison said.

The legislator, who is Muslim, stressed the need to embrace those fleeing the same terrorism America continues to fight abroad. But many other elected officials do not share this sentiment.

While the Obama administration has said it plans on taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year, more than half of governors across the U.S. have voiced their opposition to the idea of resettling Syrian refugees within their states. Two of these governors are Republican presidential hopefuls: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

On "Morning Joe," Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News asked Ellison what he says to his colleagues in Congress who want America to turn away Muslim refugees and only accept Christian ones.

"I say Congress shall make no law establishing a religion nor the free exercise thereof. That is the first clause of the First Amendment. I’m telling you these folks are letting fear make them forget the Constitution, and they shouldn’t do it," Ellison said.

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A man is helping out a baby as refugees from Afghanistan and Syria disembark from in a life boat on the shores of Lesbos near Skala Sikaminias, Greece on Nov. 10, 2015. Lesbos, the Greek vacation island in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, faces massive refugee flows from the Middle East countries.
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A general view of a make-shift camp set up by mainly Syrian refugees at the Porte de Saint-Ouen in Paris, early on Oct. 2, 2015.
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Lebanese forces walk at a burnt unofficial Syrian refugee camp in the Al-Marj area of Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley, after a fire ripped through it on June 1, 2015, killing a baby and injuring several others.
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Syrian children search for their belongings at a school following airstrikes by Syrian government forces on Dec. 22, 2013, in the northern Syrian city of Marea on the outskirts of Aleppo.
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A Syrian Kurdish boy sits on a destroyed tank in the Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, on March 27, 2015.
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