Last evening, Governor Terry Branstad announced his intention to refuse the resettlement of any Syrian refugees in Iowa. His statement comes amidst global tension and fear following the terrorist attacks in Paris last week. Although the Islamic State has claimed connections to the attacks, Governor Branstad’s allegation that Iowa must turn refugees away for security reasons is xenophobic and inaccurate, and shirks the responsibilities and values that we hold as Iowans and as Americans.

Factually and historically, refugees do not present a domestic terror threat. So-called “homegrown” terrorists have been responsible for many more attacks than any other demographic group since September 11, 2001. In fact, the United States has accepted more than 700,000 refugees since 9/11; not one of them has been arrested on domestic terrorism charges. To claim otherwise is to participate in an atmosphere of bigotry, xenophobia, and Islamophobia, and to place blame unfairly on the innocent and vulnerable.

Governor Branstad is, unfortunately, only one of many in the United States to speak against the housing of Syrian refugees. Although states cannot take legal action to block the federal government from housing refugees, they can refuse to cooperate with resettlement work, as Branstad and more than 20 other governors have done. Some, including Republican presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, have gone further and suggested, in direct contradiction to the values professed in the First Amendment, that refugees be subjected to a “religion test;” under their system, only Christians would be granted asylum. These actions are discriminatory and, in a country founded on the ideals of personal freedom, shamefully ignorant.

Moreover, Governor Branstad’s statement and similar ones from his peers fail to treat the Syrian refugees as what they are: fellow humans. Each mother and child, each teenager and old man is a human with a life and hopes and dreams. As a Tweet from a New York Times reporter noted, Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant. Every refugee seeking help is as real and important and full of potential as any of us here, and we must endeavor to remember that through the flood of statistics used to package the crisis in manageable terms.

As citizens of one of the wealthiest and most able countries in the world, we have an obligation to aid the millions of refugees in desperate need of shelter from devastating violence perpetrated by the same terrorists that we fear here. Particularly in light of the atrocities committed in Paris, the threat of terrorism is frightening even to us in Iowa City; imagine, then, what it must be like to live in a region controlled by the Islamic State, racked by tremendous violence daily or hourly. Three-quarters of the Syrian refugee population is made up of women and children; the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than ten million Syrians will be in need of aid by the end of 2015. The Obama administration plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees, in addition to the 1,500 already present, next year. Although this number is low in comparison to the 35,000 that Germany plans to resettle and the 1.9 million living in Turkey as of September, it is much better than Governor Branstad’s flat refusal to aid any of the millions in need. Iowa has the ability to do our fair share in this time of crisis: we have the ability, the space, and, I believe, the compassion to provide shelter for the innocent and endangered Syrians currently fleeing their homes.