Caron’s seven-step plan to defeat the Islamic State:
- Declare war on IS.
- Form a military coalition in the Middle East to fight IS, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
- Urge regional partners in the Middle East to recruit and train "Sunni Syrian men based in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and of Sunni Syrian male refugees in Jordan."
- Establish a refugee safe zone in northeastern Syria and put refugees under "international protection."
- Put "emergency" visa and immigration policies into place and "limit visitor visas to three months with mandatory check-ins for extensions no longer than three months."
- Immediately deploy military and National Guard troops to patrol US borders.
- Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and "fully investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and a supporter of terrorism."
With the Iowa caucus just one week away, Ben Carson stands fourth in the polls and is more than 26 points behind front-runner GOP candidate Donald Trump.
Born in Detroit, Mich., and a graduate of Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School, Carson has received high accolades as a doctor and author, topping the New York Times Bestseller List and writing as a columnist for the Washington Post.
The former neurosurgeon has become well known for his socially conservative values, but his popularity among fellow GOP candidate has fallen over the last six months.
Here’s where Carson stands on some of the hot topics among current presidential candidates.
Education: Don’t mandate common core, let schools choose.
Carson told conservatives at the Conservative Political Action Conference “common core is not school choice,” and public schools “don’t need some central government telling them” how to compete. Carson said while he does believe in standards, he does not want a federal or central entity to set them.
"I stand for empowering local school districts. I think the federal role in education should be mostly limited to research and technology. Forcing districts to teach curricula designed in Washington is something I will never support,” Carson said. “Successful schooling requires a hungry mind, an excellent educator, good books and what is far too often missing — significant parental involvement.”
The surgeon also supports vouchers and charter schools and has said students who learn in home schools, private schools or charter schools outperform those taught in traditional public schools.
Immigration: Undocumented residents need to leave country before receiving access to guest work program.
Carson’s immigration position is best laid-out in his 2014 National Journal Op-Ed, which proposes a national guest worker program. Under his proposed plan, Carson would allow illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to apply for guest worker status if they leave the country and then show they have a guaranteed job awaiting them upon to return. In addition, Carson would increase penalties on employers and others who break immigration rules.
“If [immigrants] have a pristine record, I support giving them an opportunity to register as guest workers so they're not living subterranean. They have to pay a back tax penalty, and they have to pay their taxes going forward. They don't get to vote, and they aren't citizens,” Carson said in an interview with ABC last October. “But my long-term plan would be for us to allow American businesses to go over there, develop the acreage, create jobs and teach those people the agri-business, while also making profit.”
Carson also advocates for the U.S. to adopt a database for every immigrant who enters the country.
Social issues: Abide by the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, but ban most abortions after 20 weeks.
In a statement issued after the Supreme Court ruling, Carson wrote that he disagrees with the decision to legalize same-sex marriage but it is now the law of the land. Carson has previously argued homosexuality is a choice and that he personally believes marriage is between a man and a woman.
On his campaign website, Carson supports the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would make it illegal to have an abortion more than 20 weeks after fertilization, allowing exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.
“In the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby,” Carson said in a 2015 interview. “Think about this. During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. And what if the abolitionist had said, you know, 'I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do' — Where would we be?”
Carson has also said he “would love to see Roe vs. Wade overturned.”
Climate change: The debate over climate change is “irrelevant.” Temperature change is cyclical.
Carson has said that he is not convinced that global warming is a threat or a proven trend. In an interview in November, he said, “there’s always going to be either cooling or warming going on” and called the climate debate “irrelevant.”
“Is there climate change? Of course there’s climate change,” Carson said. “Any point in time, temperatures are going up or temperatures are going down. Of course that’s happening. When that stops happening, that’s when we’re in big trouble.”
He also said debating over the climate is a distraction from discussions about generally protecting the environment and about the role of the Environmental Protection Agency in regulation.
Islamic State: The U.S. needs to improve its efforts to destroy the Islamic State militant group.
Last December, Carson announced his plan to defeat IS by proposing a declaration of war against the extremist militant group.
"We must destroy [IS'] caliphate and prevent their terrorists from infiltrating our homeland," Carson said. "We must also secure our borders, identify radical Islamic extremism by name and root out its agents and collaborators in our own country."
The plan came after Carson's original proposal to investigate the group drew scrutiny in October 2015.
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