Nov 19, 2015 2 min read

No fewer than 31 governors have declared they will try to prevent Syrian refugees from resettling in their states. They are responding to the terrorist attack on Paris, one of the attackers having been identified through a fingerprint as a migrant to Europe from Syria.

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, however, said he’ll welcome the refugees, and he’s taking a lot of heat for his position.

The United States has admitted 2,000 Syrian refugees so far, and President Obama has agreed to take another 10,000: a tiny fraction of the millions who have fled the war there. Those coming to the United States can’t get here in rubber rafts, however. They have to go through a screening process that can take as long as two years. Inslee said in an interview on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” Wednesday that the screening of refugees is far more rigorous than that for visitors on tourist visas.

Inslee made reference to the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, a response to fear we have come to regret.

“We lost our way,” Inslee said, “and it’s really easy to lose your way in moments like this when we are so fearful.

“We’ve got to beat these guys in hearts as well as with the U.S. Air Force. I’m glad the U.S. Air Force has dropped a whole load of munitions on those areas controlled by ISIS in the last 48 hours. That’s a good thing. But we also have to win the moral battle. And that’s a battle of hope and a vision of the future where we can live together.”