Rhode Island state Sen. Elaine Morgan (R) wrote in a Tuesday email to a constituent and her fellow state senators that if the U.S. accepts refugees from Syria, they should be placed in refugee camps.
“I do not want our governor bringing in any Syrian refugees. I think our country is under attack. I think this is a major plan by these countries to spread out their people to attack all non Muslim persons,” she wrote in the email, according to Rhode Island television station WPRI. “The Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone who is a non Muslim.”
She added that if the U.S. does take in Syrian refugees, “we should set up refugee camp to keep them segregated from our populous [sic],” according to the Huffington Post.
Morgan on Wednesday told WPRI that she accidentally sent the email out before editing it and meant only to describe “the fanatical Muslim religion and philosophy.”
She also elaborated on her proposal for refugees camps to WPRI on Wednesday.
“We have veterans in the streets starving, alcoholics, drug addicts. I can see taking [Syrian refugees] in, but keeping them all centralized – it sounds a little barbaric, but we need to centralize them and keep them in one central area,” Morgan said.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) has rejected calls to bar Syrian refugees from settling in the state, despite pressure from Republican lawmakers.
“We can’t let ourselves get caught up in the politics or any hysteria. We’ll look at it when it comes…and I’m not going to weigh in on hypothetical decisions because it’s just too important,” Raimondo told WPRI.
