Appearing as a guest during Sunday's live CNN coverage of the Paris terrorist attacks, CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem worried that, if the United States refuses to allow Syrian refugees into the country, that it would bolster "very right-wing elements" in Europe, leading the Europeans to "close their borders" to more refugees.
At about 6:48 p.m., after arguing that it would be more difficult for an terrorist attack similar to Paris to happen in the U.S, because there is much more surveillance, she soon continued:
The Department of Homeland Security obviously with the State Department is ratcheting up refugee surveillance essentially because we won't take what people say for granted. As I said earlier, we have much more focus on a family unification standard for refugees, In other words, there was a lot of Syrian-Americans, can people vouch for others, and as I'm willing to say, none of this is perfect, but you have to think of, "What is the alternative?"
Kayyem then fretted:
Without a refugee program in the United States, this will say to Europe and especially very right-wing elements in Europe that not even the United States is taking them in. And then everyone begins to close their borders. And then the alternative is what? I mean, the alternative is gonna be, I mean, these people are still gonna come, so better to have a formalized process than not.
