Carly Fiorina Slams Obama For European Migrant Crisis: 'This Is What Happens When the U.S. Fails to Lead

WASHINGTON (TheBlaze/AP) — Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said Sunday the United States shouldn't open its doors any wider to welcome Syrian refugees streaming into Europe.

The former technology executive cited concerns about terrorism in explaining her position during an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the U.S. "sadly, cannot relax our entrance criteria."

"Unfortunately we have known these crisis was coming for a very long time," Fiorina said. "This is an example of what happens when the United States fails to lead. President Obama had options in Syria three years ago and he failed to exercise any of those options. And he has watched as this humanitarian crisis has grown and grown."

Image source: CBS News

"The United States, I believe, has done its fair share in terms of humanitarian aid," she continued. "Certainly the United States has not led as I indicated earlier. I think the United States honestly, sadly, cannot relax our entrance criteria. I mean, we are having to be very careful about who we let enter this country from these war torn regions to ensure that terrorists are not coming here. I think the Europeans need to continue to step up here — both in terms of the amount of money they provide for humanitarian relief, they have not done as much as they United States has done on that front, and I also think they are beginning to step up and letting some of these refugees cross into their borders."

An estimated 4 million refugees have fled Syria since 2011. The United States has accepted about 1,000 Syrians this year among 70,000 refugees from across the world.

Some have called on the U.S. to expand its refugee program.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the situation as "a shared responsibility among the civilized nation states of the world," in an interview that aired Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Yet Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, said the U.S. should be "very careful about who we let enter this country from these war torn regions to ensure that terrorists are not coming here."

"But sadly, this is a crisis that everyone should have known was coming for at least three years now," Fiorina said.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich, another Republican presidential candidate, suggested there was room for the United States to play a bigger role.

"I think we do have a responsibility in terms of taking some more folks in — making sure they assimilate, and at the same time, helping people to actually be safe as they move — that's logistical support," he told ABC. "But this is fundamentally an issue that Europe has to come to grips with."