Governors from more than half of the states have now thrown up barriers to Syrian refugees.
The count, as of Tuesday morning, was 27, including Arkansas.
This state -- nor any of the others in the list -- should take pride or consolation from the actions of Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the others.
Theirs is a disappointing, even embarrassing response to people in dire need of help.
Blame it on fear. Somewhere among the throngs of Syrians who are running from their homeland and leaving everything that they've ever known to attempt the dangerous trek to freedom may be murderers like those who attacked Paris last week.
Or so goes the argument being used by so many to block Syrian refugees from coming to America.
Some of those who are in the migration may be terrorists. Authorities investigating the horrible events in Paris say at least one of the attackers carried a Syrian passport and might have entered Europe as a refugee.
But does that possibility justify an end to compassion toward all the others? An end to the idea that the United States of America welcomes "huddled masses yearning to breath free?"
Here's the brief statement issued by Gov. Hutchinson:
"As governor, I oppose any facility or installation in Arkansas being used as a Syrian refugee center. Many of the Syrian refugees are fleeing violence in their own country but Europe, Asia or Africa are logically the best places for resettlement or for temporary asylum. Syria is a war torn country and the United States will support our European friends in fighting ISIL in Syria and elsewhere; however, this is not the right strategy for the United States to become a permanent place of relocation. Again, I will oppose Arkansas being used as such a relocation center.
"The hardships facing these refugees and their families are beyond most of our understanding, and my thoughts and prayers are with them, but I will not support a policy that is not the best solution and that poses risk to Arkansans."
The governor offers his thoughts and prayers but no safe haven for any of the refugees, not even those who might be thoroughly vetted before being allowed into the country.
Leave it to Europe, Asia and Africa to resettle the Syrians or provide temporary asylum, he says. Let them take the risk.
Granted, many Arkansans may agree with the governor on principle.
There is also a history here. Refugees are not new to Arkansas.
Many came in the mid-1970s to escape Vietnam as the war there was ending. Individuals and families sympathetic to Americans had to be airlifted out.
Fort Chaffee in Arkansas provided their refuge and many of those families have quietly integrated into Arkansas life in the decades that followed.
Then there were the Cubans, 20,000 of them initially brought to the military base after Castro let 125,000 leave Cuba as part of the 1980 Mariel boat lift.
The experience was not a good one and included an actual riot at the fort. Three buildings were destroyed and more than 60 people were injured as a couple of hundred of the Cubans rioted. No one died, but it was time of considerable peril.
Fear among the locals had prompted many in the area to arm themselves heavily. Then-Gov. Bill Clinton, who had been forced by President Jimmy Carter to accept the Cubans, later wrote that he had feared "a bloodbath that would make the Little Rock Central High crisis look like a Sunday afternoon picnic."
Before it was over, more Cubans were sent to Fort Chaffee, again over Clinton's objections.
Clinton lost his re-election campaign, as did Carter.
That political history may be part of the motivation for so many governors to say they don't want Syrian refugees coming to their states.
Hutchinson may have a more personal perspective. He was practicing law in Fort Smith about the time the Cubans arrived at Fort Chaffee, so he knows better than most how the region was impacted. So his response is understandable, if not fully acceptable.
There are risks in any refugee relocation. This situation, with ISIL possibly infiltrating the masses, is scary. Still, the truth is that Hutchinson may have no more choice in whether Syrian refugees are relocated to Arkansas than Clinton had to accept the Cubans.
This state and the others might be better served by their governors' working to assure that those who might come to the U.S. are thoroughly vetted.
That's the way to avoid at least some of the risk for our people while maintaining open arms for the Syrian refugees.
Commentary on 11/18/2015