Canadian ministers McCallum, Philpott and Sajjan meet with Syrian refugees in

Republican presidential candidate retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who recently visited Syrian refugee camps in Jordan to experience firsthand the conditions, just offered up a very odd and revealing bit of circular – and some argue Onion-esque – justification for his stance that the refugees are better off staying put.

Tamkeen, a child development charity found exploitation of minors in refugee camp is rife throughout Jordan, estimating “46% of Syrian refugee boys and 14% of girls aged 14 or over are working more than 44 hours a week”. Shutting down the resettlement of Syrian refugees to the US, the ultimate result of the SAFE Act, will make the refugee crisis worse and more unsafe.

“The thing that I really learned in listening to the refugees themselves is their intense desire to return to their country and [get] repatriated”, Carson said, as quoted on the CNN website.

Health Minister Jane Philpott says Syrian refugees with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis will not be denied entry to Canada, but steps will be taken to ensure they are healthy enough to enter the country. “The real problem is, how do we get security?”

In Jordan’s remote Azraq refugee camp, proceeds from the campaign will fund the construction of a solar farm that will meet the energy needs of 27,000 Syrian refugees now living there after fleeing the conflict in their homeland.

“It’s one of the biggest problems that I think is threatening to tear our country apart”. It seems more humane and much less expensive to assist Jordan in caring for the refugees there. “It would not lead to a denial as a cause in itself of being able to be accepted as a refugee to Canada, but it may delay somebody’s travel”, said Philpott. The family lives in a part of the camp with no street lighting, and at night her 12-year-old daughter Riham is too scared to go alone to the communal toilet at the end of the row of shelters where they live, so she regularly has to wake her parents up to accompany her.

“But they are satisfied to be in the refugee camps if the refugee camps are adequately funded”.

McCallum told the crowd that on top of the logistical hurdles involved in bringing in 25,000 Syrian refugees by the end of February, he has the personal challenge of effectively communicating the developments in those efforts to the Canadian public.

Simply being helpless and dependent on others is psychologically taxing for many, noted Yon in an interview from Beirut.

Carson said the camps are still without electricity and plumbing and the USA should provide more funds.

He said he believes “the United States has a responsibility, as the pentacle nation in the world, when you see something that’s about to create havoc, to do something about it and not to sit there and leave the responsibility for somebody else”.