“The Five’s” liberal co-host Bob Beckel doubled down on his statements Tuesday that the federal government should temporarily suspend student visas for foreign Muslims.
“My point is not to suggest that there’s a cell of 70,000 people here. What I’m suggesting is that those students coming from those countries where [they] harbor resentment against the United States, if we could save one Boston Marathon event or one child’s life by saying we’re going to take a two-year hiatus from countries that we know do not like us and know from whence terrorism is coming,” the Fox News analyst told Megyn Kelly on “America Live.”
Mr. Beckel made a comment on his show Monday night, suggesting “cutting off” Muslim students from coming into this country for some time in response to the Boston bombing.
“I think we really have to consider, that given the fact so many people hate us, we’re going to have to cut off Muslim students from coming to this country for some period of time so that we can at least absorb what we got, look at what we’ve got and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or sent to prison,” he said.
He told Mrs. Kelly that he didn’t mean Muslim students who are already in the country should be kicked out, just that student visas should be looked into because they’re so easy to get.
“There are 75,000 Muslim students on visas in this country,” he said. “A student visa is easiest thing to get. One of people in 9/11 was on a student visa, and there have been others on student visas.
“How many of those have been looked at very carefully? That is one of problems. We can say only a few have gotten in on student visas but we have a lot of students here who may themselves harbor some feelings [of] resentment toward the United States. They come from countries where they are frankly brainwashed about the United States from the beginning. Their leaders don’t like the United States.”
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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