WASHINGTON -- The Paris attacks on Friday have exposed an ideological split among Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the issue of Syrian refugees coming to America.
On Monday, President Obama said his administration plans to stay the course and allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to come to the United States this year. In a speech on Monday, he urged Americans to "not close our hearts" to Syrian refugees and denounced calls from Republican candidates to allow Syrian Christians, but not Syrian Muslims into the United States.
Here's where the presidential candidates from both parties stand on the issue:
Democrats
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
Clinton has said that the United States should take in 65,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees, more than six times the 10,000 the White House has agreed to take in over the next year. During Saturday's Democratic Debate in Des Moines, Clinton said refugees should only be admitted by the United States "if we have as careful a screening and vetting process as we can imagine."
"I do not want us to, in any way, inadvertently allow people who wish us harm to come into our country," she said.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley
During Saturday's Democratic presidential debate, O'Malley stuck with his belief that the United States should accept 65,000 Syrian refugees "with proper screening."
"There are women and children dying and fleeing the same sort of carnage that was unleashed on the people of France," O'Malley said in a statement after several Republican governors announced that they would refuse to allow refugees in their states This is a time for American leadership, not a time for us to cower."
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
During a campaign rally in Cleveland, Sanders called on the United states to "not turn our backs on the refugees who are fleeing Syria and Afghanistan.
"We will do what we do best and that is be Americans – fighting racism, fighting xenophobia, fighting fear," he said.
During Saturday's presidential debate in Des Moines, Sanders said he didn't know what the "magic number" was when it came to admitting refugees into the country because "we don't know the extent of the problem.
"But I certainly think that the United States should take its full responsibility in helping” refugees, he said.
Republicans
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
Bush has said that any U.S. assistance for refugees should focus on Christians who are fleeing persecution rather than Muslims.
"We should focus our efforts...on the Christians that are being slaughtered," he told CNN's State of the Union.
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson
Carson wrote a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan, urging Congress to withdraw all funding for resettling Syrian refugees in the United States.
The United States "cannot, should not, and must not accept any Syrian refugees," Carson wrote in the letter.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
Christie has said that the United States should accept no new Syrian refugees, even young orphans. He told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt that he doesn't trust the Obama administration to "effectively vet the people who are proposed to be coming in.
"The fact is that we need appropriate vetting," he said, "and I don't think orphans under 5 are being, you know, should be admitted into the United States at this point. But you know, they have no family here. How are we going to care for these folks?"
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
Cruz says the U.S. should allow Syrian Christians but Syrian Muslim refugees into the country.
"There is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror. 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," Cruz said Sunday in South Carolina.
Cruz is planning to introduce legislation to bar Syrian refugees from entering the country according to The Washington Post.
Businessman Donald Trump
On Monday, Trump repeatedly questioned whether Syrian refugees were part of a "Trojan Horse" plot, suggesting that the U.S. allowing refugees into the United States could be a way for terrorists to sneak into the country.
"We have no idea who these people are, we are the worst when it comes to paperwork," Trump said during a CNBC interview on Monday. "This could be one of the great Trojan horses."
Later Monday during a campaign rally in Tennessee, Trump said he would like to build a "safe zone in Syria, build a big beautiful safe zone, and you have whatever it is, so they can live."
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham
Graham said he wants a "time out" on accepting new refugees in the country "until we have a system that we think will work."
During a September speech in Washington, Graham said that the United States should "take our fair share" of refugees.
"I don't see how you can lead the free world and turn your back on people who are seeking it," Graham said at the National Press Club. Turning away families fleeing violence is to "take the Statue of Liberty and tear it down ... because we don't mean it anymore."
Huckabee says the United States should not take in more Syrian refugees.
"The Statue of Liberty says bring us your tired and your weary. It didn’t say bring us your terrorists and let them come in here and bomb neighborhoods, cafes and concert halls," he said over the weekend.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal
Jindal wrote a letter to the White House in which he said it would be "prudent to pause the process of refugees coming into the United States" until authorities can further investigate what happened in Europe.
In the letter, Jindal also asked how many Syrian refugees had been resettled in Louisiana, "in hopes that the night of horror in Paris is not duplicated here."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich
A spokesman for Kasich said that the Ohio governor "doesn't believe the U.S. should accept additional refugees because security and safety issues cannot adequately be addressed," according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The position is a shift for Kasich, who in September said that the United States had a responsibility to take in Syrian refugees.
Kasich is set to deliver a national security speech in Washington Tuesday.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki
In the wake of the Paris attacks, Pataki called for an "immediate halt to granting asylum to Syrian refugees."
"There’s zero ability to vet those refugees [and] we know some of them are terrorists," Pataki said Monday in an MSNBC interview. "We take 10,000 refugees into this country, if one in 1,000 is a terrorist, that means 10 of them are coming here to engage in terrorist activity and kill Americans."
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul
Paul is introducing a bill to suspend visas issued to refugees from Syria and more than two dozen other countries pending background checks.
"It's about time, and Paris should wake us up that we can't just let anyone come to this country," Paul told reporters. "40% of immigration issues in our country are from visa overstays, and for those visiting us from countries that have large jihadist movements, this will be a bone of contention."
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio
Rubio said that the U.S. should not take in more Syrian refugees because it's impossible to vet them.
"Listen, the background checks are required now. The problem is not the background checks," Rubio told ABC News. "The problem is we can’t background check them. You can’t pick up the phone and call Syria, and that’s one of the reasons why I said we won’t be able to take more refugees. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s that we can’t."
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum
Santorum said he opposes "relocating" Syrian refugees in America because it will "accomplish everything ISIS sets out to accomplish."
He also faulted the U.S. government's vetting process and said this is "not your typical refugee flow."
"We have our own Homeland Security Department telling us that we cannot properly vet people from this region. We don’t know who they are. In many cases, they don’t have documents," he said. "Are there real refugees? Of course there are. Are there people that are not going to harm the United States? Of course there are. But we don’t know who they are and what we do know is that ISIS has already planted someone in France who committed these crimes who were part of this refugee flow."