A call for Western countries to open their borders to Syrian refugees after Syria’s neighbors have closed their borders has sparked backlash from the United States’ Congress. Big surprise, huh?
The United States is scheduled to take up to 2,000 refugees by this fall and the vague statement of “many more in the future.” In contrast, Canada has pledged to take in 11,000; Germany, 30,000. In all, the United Nations is seeking shelter for 130,000 refugees (of the approximately four million who have been displaced)–and the numbers keep growing as the conflict escalates.
Republicans in Congress claim that refugees are a threat to national security because there is a chance that, due to a lack of intelligence in Syria, terrorists from the region may enter American borders unnoticed. For this reason, they have urged the Obama administration to “go slow” to make sure all refugees are properly screened to prevent a terrorist infiltration.
However, this is unrealistic. We do not currently have the capabilities to monitor all asylum-seekers to ensure they are not terrorists, nor is this something that can really be slowed down more than it has been. Currently, background checks can take up to a year. For the four million people who are without homes right now, that’s too long. Their safety is in danger and they are literally fleeing for their lives.
And we’re not going to let them in because a few terrorists *might* be in there with them.
This is the problem with America today. We are too afraid of the “maybes” to worry about the things that really matter. Men, women, children, and the elderly do not have shelter. They do not have much food. They are in danger every extra day that they spend in refugee camps. But because the United States is so concerned about itself and the possibility of terrorists getting in, it’s going to let people who need our help die. This is the opposite of what the United States has promised overseas. If we actually cared about the well-being of the people in the Middle East, we would let them in.
Why not open it up to the voters? I do not think that Congress actually represents what Americans want anymore. I do not think, after studying history, that many Americans would be opposed to helping people in crisis. This is the exact same thing we did to the Jews when they attempted to find refuge in the United States during World War Two, and what we did to southeastern Asians during the Vietnam War.
It has already been written in the textbooks that the United States turns away people in crisis. “Oh, we could’ve done something about that” doesn’t mean anything if you continue to not do something about it. I do not want to be a part of a country that cannot learn from its history and that does not truly care for the people overseas that it claims to care about.