President Barack Obama balked at the idea of only admitting Christian refugees from Syria into the U.S. on Monday, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people on Friday.

Officials said one of the suspected terrorists reportedly entered France by traveling through Greece in midst of the flood of migrants escaping Syria. As a result, 2016 Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz said we should only allow Christian refugees and not Muslims from Syria to enter the U.S. in order to protect Americans from a potential terrorist. Likewise, Jeb Bush argued that U.S. officials should focus on letting Christian refugees into the country.

In response, Obama condemned the idea of forcing asylum-seekers to pass a religious litmus test in order to enter the nation as un-American.

"When I hear folks say that, well, maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who's fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that's shameful," said the president at the G20 Summit in Turkey, according to The New York Daily News.

Obama, who plans to allow 10,000 vetted Syrian refugees into the U.S., also blasted Bush for suggesting that people fleeing war-torn countries need to pass a religious test in order to relocate in the states.

"I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam," Obama said. "We don't discriminate against people because of their faith. We don't kill people because they're different than us. That's what separates us from them," he said.

"In the same way that the Muslim community has an obligation not to in any way excuse anti-Western or anti-Christian sentiment, we have the same obligation as Christians," Obama said. "Many of these refugees are the victims of terrorism themselves. That's what they're fleeing. Slamming the door in their faces would be a betrayal of our values."

Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum argued that the U.S. should close its borders to all refugees from Syria.

"We should not be admitting either Muslims or Christians, and you'll say, 'whoa why won't you want to admit Christians, because in so doing we would be accomplishing exactly what ISIS wants to accomplish, which is to rid the area of Christians," Santorum said Tuesday on "Rose Unplugged."

"Which is to rid the area of moderate Muslims. By bringing them here to the United States, they will resettle here and they will never go home. Which is exactly what ISIS wants," he explained. "They want to decimate the Christian communities and take them over and them have controlled by the more radical Muslim elements."