I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Gov. Steve Bullock is supporting the idea of allowing Syrian refugees to enter the state of Montana even if the ability to review the security records of the refugees is seriously lacking and even if such refugees provide great danger to our citizens in our state and our nation. 

My only conclusion is that Gov. Bullock cares more about looking politically correct than caring about the safety of the citizens that elected him to the governorship.

I applaud Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Ryan Zinke for calling for a halt to the president’s plan to accept thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, of Syrian refugees into the United States, and Rep. Zinke’s introduction of legislation to bolster security screening requirements and a pause in the refugee settlement plan until Congress votes to resume it. 

I also applaud the 26 governors so far, including a few Democrat governors, that have announced they will not accept Syrian refugees across their borders. Since Sen. Tester says he wants to review how background checks are conducted to make sure Syrian refugees are properly reviewed for safety, I urge Sen. Tester and Sen. Daines to co-introduce similar legislation in the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan basis and force the silent president of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell, to actually do something regarding this issue.

This is NOT political as the president wants it to be. This is a matter of national safety. Every other country defends its borders, but the U.S. president refuses to do so.

The influx of illegal aliens into our nation must come to an immediate halt and ALL illegal aliens that have expired visas or green cards must be immediately returned to their homeland. Any illegal alien that has committed a crime must be permanently returned to his or her homeland and never allowed to return to the United States of America and no city or state, including the state of Montana, can ever again be a sanctuary state or city for illegal aliens.

Our nation welcomes new citizens but they must come to us legally as hundreds of thousands do each year. I have the pleasure of welcoming new citizens every three months in formal citizenship ceremonies at the federal courthouse when I help host a welcome luncheon after the ceremony and want all new citizens to become U.S.A. citizens in that fashion. We do not want anyone that starts their life in the U.S.A. illegally.

Our Montana citizens, as members of the Montana Army National Guard, have protected our state and nation when they served in the Iraq and Afghanistan, but because of a lack of leadership on the part of this president and the premature withdrawal of troops in the Middle East, all of the gains made by our U.S. troops have been lost. These must be regained by U.S. and other ally troops in the future to keep Middle Eastern terrorists in their territories and not spread out around the world as is currently happening around the world. We do not want such extreme terrorism in the United States as we witnessed in Paris on Friday the 13th.

We also do not need to put our nation in harm’s way by allowing Syrian or any Middle Eastern refugees or college students to come to the United States without adequately and completely checking their background. At this time in our history with the violence in the Middle East, it is unwise to allow anyone from the Middle East to come to the United States.

Reneau is a resident of Blue Mountain.