In response to the Paris terrorist attacks, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Rand Paul announced Monday that he is introducing legislation to immediately ban the U.S. from issuing visas to refugees and students from about 30 countries that have a "significant jihadist movement."
"I think that the best way to defend the country from attackers, attackers that don't really have an army but would come here as individuals, is to make sure we try to prevent their access into our country," Paul told reporters on Monday, according to The Hill. "It is about time, and I think Paris should wake us up to the fact that we can't just let anyone come to this country."
The legislation temporarily bans all visas from the high-risk countries, including for students and tourists, but could be lifted once Congress is able to certify that a country has completely secured its borders.
Paul's bill would also establish a 30-day waiting period for people from visa-waiver countries - which includes France - unless they have previously participated in the Department of Homeland Security's Global Entry program, which runs background checks for expedited entry, according to the National Review.
The Kentucky senator said he would pay for the ban with "a special tax on arms sales to the more than two dozen countries on the list."
Paul told Breitbart that he believes there is a reasonable chance that there will be a vote on "something having to do with the screening and or the barring of refugees from coming to this country," because "the American people are going to call for it" in the wake of the Paris attacks.
"My message not only to the leadership, but to the country, is if we want to defend ourselves, we have to defend ourselves and the first way to do it is to bar people from coming to your country who would attack you," Paul told Breitbart. "The interesting thing about this is people are talking about world-wide war to stop this and you would think the first thing you would do is stop people from coming to our country."
Many of the GOP presidential candidates have called for a reexamination of America's refugee policies in the wake of the Paris attacks, which left 129 dead and more than 300 injured.
The Obama administration is planning on providing refuge to some 10,000 Syrians who are fleeing the ongoing civil war, but many in the U.S. fear that extremists from the Islamic State group, who claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, might also be able to sneak into the U.S. disguised as refugees.
