By NICK GASS, Politico
Ben Carson on Tuesday called it the “height of hypocrisy” for the United States to call on Turkey to seal part of its border with Syria while failing to shut its own with Mexico
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the White House has urged Turkey to deploy thousands of additional troops to block a 60-mile stretch of border that officials have said acts as a corridor for Islamic State fighters to move in and out of combat. Officials have estimated that it could take up to 30,000 troops to get the job done.
“Yes, it would be good to seal off the border so that there wasn’t such a flow of people into the ranks of ISIS, but by the same token, you look at our border, it is completely porous,” Carson said in an interview with “Fox and Friends.”
“Terrorists can come here also. I’ve been down there. I mean, I was astonished by how little protection there is and all of the drugs that are coming through,” he added. “So for us to sit there and proclaim sanctimoniously that you should close your border while we haven’t done that to protect the American people seems to me the height of hypocrisy.”
The Republican presidential candidate visited refugee camps in Jordan last week, where he said efforts on the ground need more funding.
“They were saying what they would really like the United States and other countries to do is support programs like they have in Jordan. The Jordanians are wonderful people,” Carson continued. “They’ve opened their hearts and their land, but they don’t have the money to sustain it, and consequently, there’s a brand-new hospital there that’s not even being utilized because they don’t have the money to run it.”
Asked whether those he encountered wanted to come to places like the U.S. or return to Syria, Carson said it was their goal to be repatriated to their home country.
“And also, look at what happens,” he said, advocating what he presented as a practical but humane solution to the ongoing refugee crisis. “We bring in 25,000 people here. Look at the cost of that, and it does nothing, we’re talking about millions of people. It makes somebody feel good —yeah, we did our part! We gotta do things that work, not things that make people feel good.”
