Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stopped by “Late Night With Seth Meyers” on Monday and had some surprisingly welcoming things to say about the Syrian refugee crisis.
She began by defending the many governors who have objected to housing those fleeing the war-torn country. “Their message is not, ‘We do not want Syrian refugees,’” Palin said. “Their message is, ‘What is the vetting process? How do we know that these are the innocents coming over … and they’re not the bad guys infiltrating?’”
When Meyers noted that there was an 18- to 24-month screening process before any refugee would enter the U.S., Palin raised her objections to that process.
“Well, I don’t trust what the federal government is telling us,” she said. “There is no way to filter out those who would want to do this country harm with the process that we see in place today.”
But John McCain’s former vice presidential running mate conceded, “There is never going to be any process where you’re going to reach absolute safety.”
And this is when the conversation took an interesting turn, with her acknowledging the shortcomings of any efforts to achieve absolute goals.
“If we were to strive to reach absolute safety we would not have freedom,” she said. “We’re not going to give up freedom for all that.”
Palin also conceded that the majority of those seeking to enter the U.S. are motivated by the values and opportunities that are available here.
“I do think that most people want to come to America to enjoy what we’ve been blessed with,” she said. “It’s just unfortunate that we know, as we saw in Paris, there are some people who want to get to a country to do harm.”
“For the most part,” she concluded, “people want to be here to enjoy that exceptionalism that we are all blessed to enjoy.”