After U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's remarks that he would look Syrian refugees in the eye and say "You can't come here," during the New Hampshire primaries on Tuesday evening, political experts speaking to Daily Sabah said that his stance on issues such as refugees and the Muslim community contradicts core American values.
Burhanettin Duran, the head of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), said that Trump's remarks only serve terror and ethnocentrism, and they are un-American.
Politicians such as Trump are not permanent in U.S. politics, Duran said, adding that U.S. politics eliminate these figures eventually since they have no place in the country's politics in the long term.
Dozens of children lose their lives or are separated from their parent every day in the war-torn country of Syria, they open their eyes to a new day under the shadow of bombs each day, and many of them know that the line between life and death is very thin. While Syrian refugee children witness one of the biggest tragedies of recent times, Trump on Tuesday took a rather unorthodox approach on Syrian refugees, the responsibility of which is on the shoulders of the entire world.
Trump said that he had absolutely no problem with looking Syrian children in the face and telling them to leave right before he claimed: "I have a bigger heart than anybody in this room."
"There's absolutely no way of saying where these people come from. They may be from Syria, they may be ISIS [DAESH], they may be ISIS related," Trump said as quoted by daily tabloid New York Daily News.
Trump continued: "We don't know where their parents come from, they have no documentation whatsoever," sparking a roar of applause from the crowd.
During the town hall meeting, a man from the crowd asked Trump if he would be able to look at Syrian children and say they were not allowed in the U.S. or attend school there, to which Trump replied: "I can look in their faces and say, ‘You can't come here.' "
Daily Sabah asked Syrian refugee children between the ages of 12 and 17 who live in Turkey whether they would prefer to be in the U.S. following Trump's remarks. Not to be traumatic, we did not quote Trump's remarks as many do not know who Trump, but directly asked whether they want to live in the U.S. even if some politicians do not want them there.
"We are not different than children in the U.S. The only difference is that they are not close to my culture and I am not close to theirs. Only because I miss my own home, I would like to stay in a place that is close my own culture," Mohammad, 17, said.
Ahmed, 16, in Istanbul, said that he is pleased to be in Turkey and receive an education here even though he lost nearly two years due to the ongoing civil war in Syria.
"The U.S. is a stranger to our Syrian culture and also I have many friends and relatives in Turkey. I have no reason to go," he said.
"We will go back to Syria when the war is over, my father said. So I do not want to travel that far," Sara, 12, said.
It is not the first time that Trump has caught the world's attention with his harsh stance on Syrian refugees and Muslims. In January, four weeks away from the opening of the 2016 presidential primary contest, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of all Muslims entering the U.S. Trump's proposal for Muslims has been widely condemned by Republicans and Democrats as un-American and counterproductive, yet his hardline rhetoric on immigration has fueled his popularity among the overwhelmingly white Republican primary electorate.
