"Do you realize that you're saying nothing new?"
Who cares? The question is does it work or not?
"People said the same things about the Irish, the Germans, the Jews, and the Russians when they started immigrating. The only reason you think your argument carries more weight now is because some terrorists happen to be muslims."
First of all if they ever said that about Germans it would have been entirely valid from 1939 to 1945. It would not be valid after 1945 when Germany did a 180 and Nazism is no longer an significant issue. When you're at war with a country it makes no sense to take in immigrants or travelers from that country, especially large numbers of military age men. There would be no effective way to ensure their loyalty and it's a security risk not worth dealing with.
Some concerns about Russians traveling to the US would have also been valid during the Cold War due to communist subversion. I wouldn't go as far as saying no Russians should come (the Russian population as a whole did not in fact support communism, they were Orthodox Christians subjugated by communist tyrants from within). Some Russian KGB linked defectors were also useful in exposing the extent of communist subversion of other nations (see Yuri Bezmenov's interview) BUT at the very least you would NOT want a foreign national on your soil, either Russian or otherwise, promoting communism and the downfall of the American government. That is not free speech, that is actually closer to seditious conspiracy and ideological warfare and we need to make a distinction between the two. No country has any obligation to tolerate the presence of foreigners working towards its destruction. If they don't like how things are done, they should leave. In fact allegiance to communism or a communist party is still grounds for being barred from citizenship in the US. Read the immigration laws.
Some concerns about mass Russian immigration would STILL be valid today, except that it doesn't happen. There are not hundreds of thousands of Russian pouring to a European country or the US. The reason why this would be a problem is that if a territory starts having a large percentage of the population as Russian, it gives Russia an excuse to assert its influence in that region, as happened with the eastern part of Ukraine and Crimea. But as I said, it doesn't happen or at least hasn't happened for a long time.
Demographic warfare however is a thing. The Chinese communists for example moved large numbers of Chinese into Tibet with the express purpose of diluting Tibetan culture. Ukraine was also a target for "Russification" even before communism.
As for Jews, no concerns are valid as far as I'm concerned, they're always over-represented in science and business which is good for society. Jews basically took a shit hole in the desert 70 years ago and turned into a first world country. In the Middle East. That's quite impressive actually.
Irish are Christian. They're easier to integrate with other Christians and they don't seem to have a problem with anyone else really. The Troubles is history and was only a local thing anyway. 9/11 killed more people in 1 day than the Troubles did in years. Not comparable.
@Swede
"If you shut the doors, then the second-oldest form of war (i.e. war) might ensue."
Or not. If these millions of Syrians are "moderate", why don't they form their own "moderate" rebellion and fight both Assad and the jihadists to create a democracy?
Spoiler alert: they're not