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Ben Carson: Refugees would rather be in Syria than US

WASHINGTON — Refugees fleeing war-ravaged Syria don’t really want to come to America, Ben Carson said on Sunday.

“They want to go back home, obviously,” the Republican presidential candidate told ABC’s “This Week.”

Speaking from neighboring Jordan, where he met this weekend with Syrians staying in temporary shelters, Carson said he asked the refugees what the United States should do.

“I was a little bit surprised with the answer, because it wasn’t what we’re hearing a lot,” he said. “We’re hearing that they all want to come here to the United States. And that’s not what they want.”

The United States should focus on building up refugee facilities in Jordan rather than accepting refugees and exposing America to a “population that could be infiltrated with terrorists who want to destroy us,” he said.

He estimated Jordan could expand the facilities’ capacity and add electricity and plumbing there for $3 billion annually.

“That’s how much money we spent last year on Halloween candy,” Carson told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He insisted the camps are “really quite nice.”

“They are satisfied to be in the refugee camps if the refugee camps are adequately funded,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Recognize that in these camps they have schools, they have recreational facilities that are really quite nice.”

President Obama has pledged to accept 10,000 refugees, but, like most Republicans, Carson doesn’t want them coming en masse.

“For us to bring 10,000 or 25,000 people over here, that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “I mean, we need to look at real solutions for the problem and not things that make us feel good about ourselves.”

Never a foreign-affairs standout, Carson has dropped in polls since the Paris attacks as Americans have focused on terrorism.

Asked whether his trip was an acknowledgment he wasn’t prepared to be president, he said, “I’m acknowledging that I like to know what I’m talking about.”