Carson on Refugees: ‘We Have a Responsibility to Our People First’

WOODRUFF: "The administration says that its process for vetting refugees is the very toughest on refugees who come in from Syria, that they receive additional scrutiny more than any others who come into this country. Why isn’t that enough?"
CARSON: "Republican Presidential Candidate: Well, first of all, you know, I think we should be compassionate, as we always have been, and recognize that there are a lot of people who have been displaced. Half of the country of Syria has been displaced. And we should be looking for ways to protect and provide safe zones for them, and utilizing our professional resources to help them over there. But we also have to use a little bit of common sense and recognize that, if we bring large numbers of such people into our country — and they’re coming from an area where a lot of the radical Islamic jihadists exist. Those people would be very foolish not to infiltrate that number with some of their own people. I can’t believe that they would just leave them alone and not try to do that. And we have to recognize that it doesn’t take that many people. When you look at what happened in France on Friday, it didn’t take 10,000 people to do that. It didn’t even take 1,000 or 100. So we have to be very careful, and we have to protect the American people. And we have to have vetting procedures that we can all agree on, not that just one group says, yes, this is the best vetting procedure that there is."
WOODRUFF: "But we know it’s a humanitarian crisis. We know that European countries are being strained. You have said yourself your heart hurts for these refugee families, for the children. But, in essence, you would turn them away, for the time being at least?"
CARSON: "Well, my heart would also hurt if we allowed people in here who destroy the lives of hundreds or maybe thousands of Americans. We have a responsibility to our people first. And when you get on an airplane, they always say, in case of an emergency, air masks will drop down, put yours on first, and then administer oxygen to your neighbor."