Republican front-runner Ben Carson has warned against Islamist jihadists infiltrating groups of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States. He said that the US should take care of its own poor and deprived, and that Syrian refugees should be resettled in their own part of the world, not America. 

Dr Carson, speaking in a conference call today to expatriate Americans and others, warned: "There's a global jihad movement going on. They would like nothing better than to be able to infiltrate that group of people and and certainly bring in a lot of their members to our country. That would be the height of irresponsibility.

"Also given the fact that we have tens of millions of people in this country already who are under-served, the underclass, we need to get them taken care of. When you get on an airplane you always hear that announcement, 'In case of an emergency, put your oxygen mask on first and then administer aid to your neighbour.' Well we need our oxygen right now."

He said it was right for the US to be concerned for the displaced Syrians.

"As far as Syrian refugees are concerned I do believe that we should be looking out for them. The way I would look out for them quite frankly is I would establish a no-fly zone along the Turkish-Syrian border where the vast majority of them are at least to provide them with a buffer zone of safety. And I would be encouraging the nations of the Arabian peninsular and Turkey and various places to take them in. We would use some of our expertise, offer that to them in terms of getting them resettled there. But I would in no way agree with Obama's proposition of bringing 200,000 of them here. And the reason is not because I'm not a compassionate person. But it's because I'm a logical person." 

In fact, President Obama has directed the United States to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees next year, an increase of six times from this year.

Carson indicated support for Israel – "The way we turn our back on Israel is abominable." – and spoke about his faith. "When I hear the word Jesus, I think of kindness, compassion towards others, love and sacrifice that provided for my salvation," he said. However the presidential candidate, a Seventh Day Adventist who has in the past expressed creationist beliefs, declined to answer a question from Christian Today about his beliefs on evolution.

He gave the conference call on the day he overtook Donald Trump in the race for the Republican nomination. In a poll asking Arizona Republicans who they support, Carson got 25.5 per cent of more than 1,000 Republican voters, compared to 24.8 per cent for Trump. 

He said he does not consider himself a politician and tried to ignore the "clamouring" for him to run for President after he addressed the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast. After a long, arduous career as a neurosurgeon when he never had time to watch movies such as "Rocky", he was ready to retire, read books and rock films. But the clamouring built up.

"Pretty soon I was getting boxes of petitions, 5000 petitions in a box, saying that I had to run for President. I had hundreds of thousands of petitions. Rooms full, boxes full."

So he started listening to Americans, particularly the older generations. "They were saying they had given up on American and they were waiting to die."

He finally said, "Lord, this is not something that I particularly saw as part of my bucket list, but if you really want me to do it, you'll have to open the doors". He explained: "Because all the professionals, all the pundits say it is impossible for someone like me to mount an instant campaign, or get adequate funding to run a national campaign, and it's silly to even think about it. So I said, 'If you open the doors I'll walk through them. Close the doors, I'll gladly sit down.'"

And the doors have just flown open.

Tens of thousands of people all over the country volunteered to help Carson's campaign, and he's had nearly 800,000 donations, the average being $52.

"I have personally stayed away from licking the boots of billionaires and special interest groups. I'm just not that kind of person. I don't do that. I won't never do that," he said.

"The key here is that we have a nation that is truly exceptional. It is unlike any other nation in the history of the world."

For thousands of years people did things the same way, but "within 200 years of the advent of America, men were walking on the moon," Carson added.

"People like to complain about America and say we are the source of all evil in the world, I don't think they've noticed that there's a lot of people trying to get in here and not a lot of people trying to escape."

He spoke powerfully about his own deprived childhood and how he became a doctor, and also showed a strong understanding of business and economics from a conservative point of view. He said he had only ever wanted to be a doctor.

"It was a tough road. We were desperately poor," he said of his youth. Carson's mother and father divorced after she discovered he was a bigamist with another family.

"She noticed in the homes that she cleaned that people didn't sit around watching TV all day and that they did a lot of reading," Carson recalled. After praying for wisdom, his mother made her children turn off the television and write two book reports a week.

"It really had a life-altering affect because all of a sudden, I started knowing stuff that nobody else knew. I was the dummy in the class before that." In 18 months, he went from the bottom to the top of the class – "It really changed the trajectory of my life." As a result, one of his main passions now is education.

Carson also spoke of his concern at the size of the national debt, and the large fiscal gap between government social programmes and the tax and other income available to pay for it. All this was "heaping problems" upon the next generation, he said.

"The only reason we can sustain that kind of debt is because we are the reserve currency of the world which means we can print money." He believes America to be engaged in currency manipulation, and "We need to get our house back in order."

Interest rates are so low that no one can make any money by saving, so people are choosing not to, Carson added. "We need to get the most powerful economic engine the world has ever known roaring again."

He said he is very opposed to anything that puts the lives of Americans under control of world bodies such as World Bank or United Nations, stating that "Territorial control is much much better for us." He also believes the private sector and not the state should take care of social problems.

It will, however, require significant courage to disassemble the "morass" of inefficiency in Washington DC, he said.

"People are starting to wake up and realise that traditional politics is what has led us to this place. We need to be thinking about things that actually make sense, not things that make sense for Republicans or Democrats but things that make sense of Americans or the American way of life," he explained.

Traditional politics will not lead the US "out of the quagmire we are in right now."