Editorial: Bentley's executive order is an ugly repeat of history

As the world tried to make sense of the terrible attacks in Paris, Gov. Robert Bentley declared Alabama would not accept refugees from war-ravaged Syria.

Although Bentley was the second governor to make such a declaration, it became national news when he did it.

When the governor from Alabama says he wants to refuse government services to a group of people, it tends to make national news.

Twenty-four governors have made the same declaration, but Bentley and Alabama have become the face movement to keep Syrians out of the country.

We call on Bentley to cancel his executive order to state agencies to “prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the State of Alabama.”

Public policy decisions applied to a whole group of people have never gone down in history as a wise decision, and often are the root of the most shameful aspects of American history.

As information continues to be revealed about the attackers in Paris, we have learned most of the attackers were European-nationals, and a Syrian passport found on one of the attackers might not be a real document.

The United States has committed to taking in 10,000 Syrian refugees in 2016. There are 4.2 million registered Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations.

America’s commitment is so small because our program to screen and make sure there are no terrorists posing as refugees is the toughest in the world. It takes an average of 18-months to make it through the screening process, according to the U.S. Department of State. A process long and thorough enough to discover any forged documents or terrorists connections a person might have.

However, Bentley said in a letter to President Barack Obama that the process was not good enough, because the FBI does not have information on Syrians in its database.

Under Bentley’s logic, the United States could never accept any refugee fleeing from any war-torn state unless the FBI, a domestic law-enforcement agency, has background data on law-abiding foreign nationals.

Over the past three years, 106 refugees from Iraq and 93 refugees from Somalia settled in Alabama, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Iraq is the birthplace of the Islamic State terrorists group. Somalia also has large terrorists groups and doesn’t have a real central government to collect data for the FBI.

Bentley did not protest their settlement in the state.

To us, it appears Bentley’s and other governor’s executive orders aren’t about keeping their state safe, but about scoring easy political points – a move Alabama governors in the past have become famous for.