November 17, 2015: More than a dozen governors -- including Arizona's Governor, Doug Ducey -- said they'd like to refuse Syrian refugees coming to their state. The Republican governors across the south, the midwest and northwest say they're concerned that resettlement could open the doors to terrorists.
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| Rana Singh Sodhi said he hoped the country would learn from the mis-education in his brother's death. Not everyone who looks a certain way, or is from a certain, place is a certain way. |
But the announcements are the wrong move for Rana Singh Sodhi, who has made tolerance his life's work after his brother was killed in a hate crime in Mesa in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks.
Balbir Singh Sodhi was murdered at his Mesa gas station by a man who said he wanted to kill a Muslim in retaliation for the attack on the World Trade Towers. But Balbir was a Sikh.
"He was the first post-9/11 hate crime victim in Mesa, Arizona," Sodhi said.
Sodhi had hope everyone, including states, learned from his family's loss. He said there was miseducation then, but he fears the Syrian refugees heading here could be settling into a culture where some see them as terrorists.
"How we can say, 'OK, we are safe now,' and stop the other people to come here?" Sodhi asked.
12 News met Sodhi inside the chapel at busy Sky Harbor. He was there at his first meeting for an interfaith group.
Sodhi pondered the moves of the governors.
"We call the refugees the people who don't have a home, people needing help," he said. "How do we tag them terrorists? That's totally wrong."
Sodhi, who came to the States in 1985 from India, argues that the country was built on immigrants.
"Whether it's second-generation, third-generation or fourth generation, we are all immigrants," Sodhi said.
Sodhi said that ISIS, the organization that claimed responsibility for the bloodshed in Paris, links itself to Islam, but they aren't.
"They don't have any religion," he said. "They don't belong to any religion."
A list by the Arizona Department of Economic Security, or DES, said through Sept. 25, the state has taken in 112 refugees from Syria this year. The state ranks seventh in the country for accepting refugees.