Anti-refugee backlash at local level turns ugly [View all]

[deminks]

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/anti-refugee-backlash-local-level-turns-ugly

(snip)

This may seem like an offensive joke, but the Roanoke mayor was apparently quite serious. “I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from Isis [sic] now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then,” Bowers said in a statement.

Unlike most of the high-profile refugee critics, the mayor is a Democrat – who was promptly removed from Hillary Clinton campaign’s Virginia leadership council.

And if there’s a contest for Worst Reaction to Paris, David Bowers will obviously be a top contender, but he won’t be the only challenger. In Missouri, state Rep. Mike Moon (R) is calling for a special legislative session to stop “the potential Islamization of Missouri.”

In Tennessee, state Rep. Glen Casada (R), the chairman of the state House Republican Caucus, yesterday called for the National Guard to round up recent Syrian refugees who might already be in Tennessee, so they could be forcibly removed – even if they’ve done literally nothing wrong.

Perhaps the ugliest situation of them all has unfolded in Louisiana, where Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Baton Rouge “has received threats because they help Syrian refugees resettling” in the state.

(end snip)

I am at a loss for words.