Sarah Palin on ‘Late Night': U.S. Can't Filter ‘Bad Guys' From Refugees

Sarah Palin doesn’t trust the federal government’s vetting process of Syrian refugees.

“There’s no way to filter out those who’d want to do this country harm,” she told “Late Night” host Seth Meyers on Monday.

Meyers asked Palin why there was so much resistance from governors to accept Syrian refugees. At least 31 governors said they opposed the resettlement of refugees from the war-torn country in their states following the Paris attacks that killed 130 people on Nov. 13.

“Their message is not ‘we don’t want Syrian refugees,’” Palin said. “Their message is ‘what is the vetting process? How do we know these are the innocents that are coming over and actually needing aid and they’re not the bad guys infiltrating under the guise of refugees?’”

Meyers reminded the former governor of Alaska that there is an 18 to 24 month vetting period refugees need to pass before being accepted, and, even with that in place, there would never be a fool-proof way of weeding out potential terrorists from real refugees.

“You should not trust what the federal government is telling you about the 18 to 24 month vetting process,” Palin said, adding that freedom is a foundation of being American.

“That’s why people are so desperate to come here,” Meyers said, calling the rejection of refugees fear-based. “I do think they want to come here to enjoy the same things you and I are lucky enough to enjoy.”

Palin agreed, saying freedom is “an exceptionalism we’re all blessed with.”

“It’s just unfortunate that as we know, as we saw in Paris, there are some people, though, want to get to a country to do harm,” she said.

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