Ted Cruz says there's no 'meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror'

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday it's "lunacy" to allow Muslim refugees fleeing Syria into the United States, but says the borders should be open for Christians.

"There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror," he told reporters Sunday. "If there were a group of radical Christians pledging to murder anyone who had a different religious view than they, we would have a different national security situation." In 2014, Cruz told Fox News that Syrian refugees should be allowed to settle in the U.S., The Washington Post reports, but now says they should go to countries in the Middle East with Muslim majorities.

Cruz's sentiments were echoed by fellow Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who said on CNN's State of the Union Sunday the United States should "focus our efforts as it relates to refugees on the Christians that are being slaughtered." Neither Bush nor Cruz was able to explain how they would determine if a refugee was Christian, Muslim, or another religion.

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Lavinia Limon, president and chief executive of the U.S. Commission for Refugees and Immigrants, told the Post she's surprised that supporting refugees is no longer a nonpartisan issue. "The definition of a refugee is someone fleeing oppression," she said. "They're fleeing terrorism. They've experienced what happened in Paris on a daily basis." She is also upset to hear the candidates want to divide refugees by religion. "That's the same distinction that ISIS makes between Muslims and Christians," she said. "It's playing into their hands."