Commentary
We Have A Duty To Accept More Syrian Refugees
- by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, November 18, 2015
The world is facing the most serious refugee crisis since the Second World War. It has instigated political confrontation in Europe and is now doing the same here in the United States.
More than half of our country’s governors are spouting xenophobic rhetoric reminiscent of regimes and countries we would not like being compared to.
Most legal experts, whether Democrat or Republican, say that governors have no authority to override federal decisions on refugee relocation. So why are so many asserting that they just won’t let Syrian refugees into their states?
The fear is seated in the possibility that one of the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks last Friday came in through Greece as a Syrian refugee. If we look at the refugee situation in Europe and compare it to the United States, this apprehension to accepting Syrian refugees has little to no basis in evidence.
Since 2011, the start of the Syrian civil war, the United States has admitted 2,200 Syrian refugees. This is compared to over 6,000 migrants arriving in Germanyevery day, many of whom are Syrian. That doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of migrants from other countries that try to reach the European continent each year.
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The success of the screening process Europe uses to admit refugees is also difficult to accurately assess. With thousands arriving through various routes and with little or no documentation, it is in no way comparable to the lengthy and in-depth system that is used for refugees applying for asylum in the United States.
Not only does our executive branch have the right to override governors who claim they want to stop the intake of Syrian refugees, but our country, as a global power, has a duty to aid in the accommodation and safety of human beings displaced, in part, because of destabilizing wars we have waged.
Whether we should stop the flow, or more accurately the drip, of Syrian refugees into the United States is not the question we should ask ourselves. The White House has already stated that it wants to increase the number of Syrian refugees to at least 10,000 in the next fiscal year. We should as a country of immigrants press for that number to increase.
The more we alienate refugees, Muslim or other, the more we fuel the feeling of helplessness, degrade their humanity and increase their suffering. Shutting our borders to legitimate refugees will only increase the likelihood of extremism, which will, in turn, further endanger our homeland. We must be compassionate in order to be safe.
I see many pictures of the refugees that contain a very large number of able body personnel.
Why are they not joining forces with someone fighting for their own country?
To blindly - and it is blindly - bring in thousands of Syrians (and others - are you going to guarantee that any visa/passport is valid?) is foolish.
I am all for the safety and no-fly zone approach. NATO allies need to set aside a part of the refugees country and have their able bodied personnel defend it with our help. Not run from it, and start draining even more resources from this country.
Laurence, if you'd get off your flying bridge long enough to look around you'd realize that your fear is better focused on the 12,000 US citizens gunned down right here at home each year by their fellow citizens and not on the poor souls -- able-bodied and otherwise -- who are the ultimate victims of geo-political instability to which we have been a major contributor. You should be ashamed of yourself. Cocktails in the main salon, anyone?
In your last paragraph, you mentioned about "alienate" the refugees and Muslims. What is oblivious to me is they are the ones are alienating the good will of the free people of the world. Even the Muslim Gulf States will not help them. Where is the good will there?
Last, I am responsible for my own success and "feelings". We as a nation give the world billions of dollars in aid to help these people. It's time we help them win back their own homeland include what they need to survive in their own land rather than to bring them to America.
1. All of these opinions have absolutely no idea about the countries, geographically or culturally or language or have even visited one of the countries. 2. The people who have left Syria were no more fighters than you are behind your safe desk or selling refrigerators. They have no weapons, no training, no more desire to fight than you have trained your children to poo poo to serve their country. 1% or less in the US volunteer. The US training program was a ruse. Rebel infrastructure ... there never was one. 3. 9+ births per woman create how many people squeezed from nothing into nothing more. Everyone is afraid to touch the truth. 3. The only thing they have to face going back is death. They are NOT migrants. 4. BIG blame in Silicon Valley and the like. Only see technology from their own profitable side of the selfishie castle prism.Keeping it short here. 5. Radical christains use violence to kill. More children have died by guns here than police in the past year. Plenty more examples. 6. Giving a few thousand people who were just living their daily lives, people who are willing to risk their own lives to get out of the streets raining bullets a small chance to contribute with their skills and hard work to build a life in the US will make us a better country. The farmers will help do the jobs Americans will not do. Many of the people have other skills to contribute. 7. The list can go on and many others will add to it.
There are no guarantees or entitlements to our own little "comfort zones" on this planet. The effects on one are an effect on all, whether we like it - or try to deny it - or not. I doubt (and hope) that not one of those calling for closed borders would stand by while a woman or child was beaten or abused by others while in their presence. But what if the beating was happening next door? Down the street? In a different state, or on a different continent? How far is "too far" when it comes to the personal responsibility to take action for fellow human beings who need help helping themselves?
These refugees aren't demanding that we go get them, or pay for their flights over here. All they want is the same chance, for many of the same reasons, our own ancestors wanted and were given, ... though many of them fought the same battles against predjudice that we're seeing now.
In short; "no man (or woman) is an island." Personally, I don't mind giving up a little so that someone else doesn't have to give up a lot, or in many cases; everything.