Carson cautions discretion in helping refugees; references the Boston Marathon bombers

Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson said that the US needs to exercise caution in allowing Syrian refugees to come into the country and made note of the fact that the Boston Marathon bombers were under refugee status when they carried out their attacks.

“I would recognize that bringing in people from the Middle East right now carries extra danger,” Carson said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “And we have to be extra cautious. You know, the typical mechanisms that we use for screening people, perhaps, have to be enhanced.”

“How does it, you know, let people like the Tsarnaev brothers in here?” he asked.

He has previously called for stringent background checks on any Syrian migrants attempting to enter the country.

“We have to recognize that this is a splendid opportunity for the global jihadists to infiltrate those numbers with members of their own organization,” Carson said on Saturday. “So we would have to have in place a very excellent screening mechanism. Until we had such a mechanism in place, we should not be bringing anyone in.”

President Obama wants to allow 10,000 refugees in over the next year.

Back in 2002, both Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev immigrated with their family in the U.S.and were granted refugee status.

During the 2013 Boston Marathon attack, they killed 3 people and injured hundreds after setting off bombs at the finish line. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer was shot and killed while the pair were trying to flee authorities.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during the manhunt.

Dzhokhar was recenlty sentenced to die.