While visiting Turkey his past week, our fearless leader was once again sternly lecturing we-the-people, from across the Atlantic. Bent on imposing his post-American “progressive” preferences on the country – regardless of what the laws mandate – Obama indignantly declared from the G-20 Summit in Antalya, that the U.S. has no religious test when it comes to accepting refugees. Of course, like so much of the president’s arrogant rhetoric these days, that turns out to be a bunch of hooey.
 
Writing at National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy (an attorney who happens to be a whole lot smarter than our constitutional scholar of a president) exposes Obama’s latest falsehood. ~

Under federal law, the executive branch is expressly required to take religion into account in determining who is granted asylum. Under the provision governing asylum (section 1158 of Title 8, U.S. Code), an alien applying for admission
must establish that … religion [among other things] …
was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.

 
The law does require a “religious test,” and for an obvious reason; asylum shouldn’t be granted arbitrarily ~

Asylum law is not a reflection of the incumbent president’s personal (and rather eccentric) sense of compassion. Asylum is a discretionary national act of compassion that is directed, by law not whim, to address persecution […]

 
Specifically, with the situation we’re currently facing in the Middle East ~

… the Islamic State is undeniably persecuting Christians. It is doing so, moreover, as a matter of doctrine. Even those Christians the Islamic State does not kill, it otherwise persecutes as called for by its construction of sharia (observe, for example, the ongoing rape jihad and sexual slavery) […]

 
And when it comes to Mr. Obama and his snarky attitude ~

(I)t is downright dishonest to claim that taking such religious distinctions into account is “not American,” let alone “shameful.” How can something American law requires be “not American”? And how can a national expression of compassion expressly aimed at alleviating persecution be “shameful”?

 
What’s truly “shameful” is Obama’s callous abandonment of the Middle East Christians: Syrian Patriarch: ‘The West Has Betrayed Us’ ~

In an interview with Le Messager, the official publication of the Catholic Church in Egypt, the patriarch emphasized that Christians in Syria “are trapped in a terrible situation.” The dwindling population faces “sectarian and ethnic” warfare and “terrorist groups that use Islam as an excuse to ‘purify’ areas under their control in the name of religion.”
 
“We Christians are not able to live in this chaos that produces militias, armed gangs, terrorist groups and Islamic parties.”

 
That’s what real, persecuted refugees sound like Mr. President!
 

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Related:
Ted Cruz Challenges Obama: ‘Lets Have a Debate on Your Refugee Policy’

 
Speaking of “tests,” here’s a special one for our bleeding heart, leftie pals… 😀