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Lembo, Markley in the WNHH studio Thursday.
Connecticut served as a beacon to the nation — or failed to heed popular warnings to tread more carefully — when it welcomed a Syrian refugee family to New Haven this week.
State Comptroller Kevin Lembo argued the former, State Sen. Joe Markley, the latter, in a spirited debate Thursday during an episode of WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven,” during which New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar piped in via text message.
The debate was sparked by the arrival in New Haven a day earlier of a Syrian refugee family, vetted by the U.S. State Department, whom the Republican governor of Indiana had turned away. Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy made a point of welcoming the family and using the incident to attack Republican governors and Congress members for using last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris to call for suspending the resettlement in the U.S. of a small portion of the three million Syrian refugees mostly taken in both other nations. (Click here to read about that.)
Markley, a Republican who represents Southington, sided with those Republican governors like Indiana’s Michael Pence. Markley noted that some Democrats have joined Republicans in supporting the suspension of accepting Syrian refugees. (A bipartisan U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to “slap stringent — and difficult to implement — new screening procedures on refugees from Syria seeking resettlement,” as The New York Times reported.)Markley rejected the notion that Republicans are pandering to people’s uninformed fears or that Democrats have been “bullied” into joining the anti-Syrian refugee frenzy.
Unless, he argued, “you think listening to your constituents is being bullied.”
That sparked a discussion of the role of an elected official during moments of crisis. What constitutes “leadership”?
“We’re elected based on a set of values, based on who we are as people,” Lembo said. “I think the voters rely on us to use our best choices … even when that decision is hard. It’s a scary thing to say, but there have been plenty of situations where the vast number of residents of an area, a state, a country, have thought one thing but the elected official thought the right thing to do was something different. Time often will prove them out. But in the moment I hope we rely on those folks to educate people who have concerns, and tamp down concerns” based on false information, “and make the hard decision whether or not they’re unpopular.
“The idea that there was a Syrian passport that was found on the ground near the body of somebody who may have been a fighter who was killed …They started firing up the engines right away. It was speaking to a group that was otherwise fired up” on immigration. “I think we simply didn’t have any information before these guys went off and did that.”
“I was proud of what the governor did yesterday” in welcoming the family turned away by Indiana, Lembo said.
Lemar: Even East Rockers are “anti-immigrant” right now.
Markley countered that he’s not so sure fears are unfounded about terrorists coming into the country from Syria. Lembo noted that the refugees go through a vetting process of up to two years by the State Department; Markley questioned how effective that process is, especially if it relies primarily on information provided by refugees themselves. FBI Director James Comey declared publicly this week that “there’s really no proper way to vet people … He’s an authority on such a topic,” Markley noted.
“If I were thinking of a way to disrupt Connecticut, it wouldn’t be by having a family enter a two-year process and then ultimately wait their turn and then be ready go and then land in Connecticut with services and a support network. I’d be more focused on folks who drop in on a Friday and make connections in the state,” Lembo argued.
“We have to be realistic about what we can do and also about how many people we can absorb,” Markley argued.
He argued that the country has to be “realistic about what we can do and how many people we can absorb.” He questioned the long-term wisdom of absorbing Syrian refugees.
“Are we doing them a favor by taking them out of their own culture and their own part of the world when there are a number of countries over there that would be perfectly capable of taking them if we pressured them into it?” he asked, citing Saudi Arabia as one preferred destination.
“Muslim nations have taken millions of refugees,” State Rep. Lemar interjected via text message from his car, where he was listening to the program on radio.
“We’re going to bring people over here in a culture they’re unaccustomed to, that they don’t have skills to take part in,” Markley continued arguing. “Is it a better situation for them? Yes. Is it a happy situation in the long run? I’m not convinced. Is it a good thing for Syria in the long run? I don’t know.”
Lembo cited past experiences of refugees and other immigrants resettling successfully here: “The culture of New Haven or Connecticut or the United States is not static. Our culture will adapt, and they will adapt. They’re choosing to come here.”
Lemar, a Democrat from New Haven, texted that he he agrees with Markley about “one thing: Public opinion is against this. In my liberal district [East Rock], my inbox is flooded with anti-refugee sentiment.”
Click on download the above sound file to hear the full WNHH episode, in which Lembo and Markley also debated the Yale protests and state pension reform. Lembo shot back at Gov. Malloy, who this week criticized him for raising questions rather than offering solutions to the pension problem.
Click on the above video to watch what Malloy had to say about the subject of refugee resettlement at New Haven City Hall Wednesday.