
Via Bloomberg:
Most Americans want the U.S. to stop letting in Syrian refugees amid fears of terrorist infiltrations after the Paris attacks, siding with Republican presidential candidates, governors and lawmakers who want to freeze the Obama administration’s resettlement program.
The findings are part of a Bloomberg Politics National Poll released Wednesday that also shows the nation divided on whether to send U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State, an idea President Barack Obama opposes, and whether the U.S. government is doing enough to protect the homeland from a comparable attack.
Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults in the survey, conducted in the days immediately following the attacks, say the nation should not continue a program to resettle up to 10,000 Syrian refugees. Just 28 percent would keep the program with the screening process as it now exists, while 11 percent said they would favor a limited program to accept only Syrian Christians while excluding Muslims, a proposal Obama has dismissed as “shameful” and un-American.
More broadly, terrorism and the Islamic State group surged to the top of Americans’ concerns immediately following the deadly attacks, even as Republicans and Democrats remain divided over how best to address threats. The percentage of those rating terrorism or the Islamic State as top concerns has nearly doubled since the poll last was taken in September. At the same time, those who think the U.S. is on the right track, fell to 23 percent, the lowest rating in more than three years. Obama’s disapproval rating rose to 51 percent, up four percentage points since September.
