Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday called for the United States government to reassess certain refugees who are already in the country and search for potential terrorist threats, according to Buzzfeed News.
“There is no doubt we need a retroactive assessment of refugees who have been admitted into this country,” Cruz told reporters after a campaign event in Iowa, according to Buzzfeed. “We need to systematically examine the national security threats, and I’ll tell you one of the greatest challenges with the Obama administration assessing security risks is the bizarre, the indefensible political correctness of refusing to acknowledge what it is we’re fighting.”
The Republican presidential candidate said that the U.S. should scrutinize refugees “coming from countries with high concentrations of radical Islamic terrorism, high concentrations of Al Qaeda or ISIS or Hamas or Hezbollah,” according to Buzzfeed.
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, numerous American lawmakers called for more intense background checks on refugees from Syria and other countries in the Middle East.
Cruz on Thursday said that the U.S. should look at public records and any evidence “that might indicate whether these individuals have ties to radical Islamic terrorism.” He said that the government should sift through “what communications, what statements have they made, what actions have they done,” according to Buzzfeed.
Cruz also reiterated that he believes governors should be allowed to ban certain refugees from their states and that the U.S. government should ban refugees from certain areas of the world.
