General News Refugees

I don't know how I feel about them. I do understand that there are many of them that are desperately fleeing for their lives but there are chances that there could be a terrorist among them and we may not even know it. It's a pretty scary thought, that.

 

It is hypocritical because a party that claims to be pro life prefers to deny refugees out of fear and risk death for millions of refugees. I am pro life personally but i think it lacks compassion. I can understand the other side to this to any extent that we have so much poverty and homeless people in this country it may make our problems worse but what can be more worse than the innocent deaths of people who want a better lives for themselves. They of course should go through strict procedures and get US citizenships cause we don't need anymore illegal immigrants. Do you really think these people are gonna eventually go back to Syria.

 

I agree with you Iiimee. I understand Americans hesitating though. They are a huge target for ISIS and maybe a few bad wolves will sneak in, though there are ways to safeguard against that.

The Syrian refugees just want a safe place to live. So many of them have been through terrible trauma. How can we close our hearts to them?

I talked to people, a huge family, who arrived in Canada from the Congo a couple of years ago. I asked the mother, "What do you like most about Canada?" She said "I like most that we can sleep safe in our beds and not worry that we will be dragged out in the middle of the night and be shot or raped." I imagine that is what the Syrian refugees crave.

 

I agree with you Iiimee. I understand Americans hesitating though. They are a huge target for ISIS and maybe a few bad wolves will sneak in, though there are ways to safeguard against that.

The Syrian refugees just want a safe place to live. So many of them have been through terrible trauma. How can we close our hearts to them?

I talked to people, a huge family, who arrived in Canada from the Congo a couple of years ago. I asked the mother, "What do you like most about Canada?" She said "I like most that we can sleep safe in our beds and not worry that we will be dragged out in the middle of the night and be shot or raped." I imagine that is what the Syrian refugees crave.

 

First, the concern is all hype and political demagoguery. Unlike Europe, we are not facing a swarm of refugees unless they decide they want to swim across the Atlantic. Here is one refugee's story on what it took to get refugee status in the United States. Personally, I think that process is too long and hard, and excludes the most vulnerable.

Second, it is the world's responsibility to create a safe zone. We need to work with the Kurds and Jordan to create a safe zone in the northern part of Syria and in the southern part of Syria. We need this to be a safe zone for refugees to flee too, where they can receive aid and be protected from all sides of the civil war. This would also allow us to set up a processing center in which they can begin being relocated. We do not want refugees to stream randomly into Europe, and we do not want to place such heavy burdens on Lebanon and Jordan.

Third, Westernized Nations (primarily the United States, European Union Nations, the U.K., Austria, New Zealand, etc.) should all agree to take as many refugees that wish to relocate. They do not get to choose which country they wish to relocate too. They are apportioned based on the host nation population size and their family ties. In other words, they are relocated to be with individuals who are related to them. The number of refugees a nation will take is based on its population size. This means that the United States would take the most refugees because it is the largest nation. Some of the smaller European nations could easily be overrun by refugees, and we do not want that to happen. It is easier for larger nations, such as the United States--both due to its physical size, as well as its population size--to absorb large numbers of people into its population without difficulty. Those who are relocated do not get to choose what cities they are relocated too. The host nation chooses what cities to place them in, though cities where they have family are first options. The host nation may not, however, ghettoize the refugees. The goal should be to disperse them widely throughout their nation, in multiple different urban centers.

Fourth, all developed nations, and in particular the wealthy Gulf States, should pledge large sums of foreign aid money to deal with this humanitarian crisis. The money will be used to run the refugee camps and protect them, as well as help fund the refugees for a time in their host country. The funds for relocated refugees should be dedicated to ensuring that they have adequate housing, health care, food, water, and other basic needs in their host country. However, the funds should also be used to help ease the refugees integration into the host country. For example, the refugee should be educated in the native culture and language. If the refugee was a doctor in Syria, then he or she should be retrained to the standards of the host country. Educational opportunities should be offered to the refugees, to help them begin rebuilding their lives in the country in which they now live.

The funds raised and the protection of the refugees should be managed through the United Nations.

If a terrorist wants to enter our country and cause harm, because we are open and free societies, this is not hard for them to achieve. Even if it means they enter our countries illegally. There is no moral reason that because some people might decide to do bad things, that we should turn away scores of others--such as widows and orphans--that are of no reasonable harm to anyone, and are just seeking safety. We are morally obligated to offer them the safety that they seek. This is especially true of the United States, not only because of the responsibility that we carry for destabilizing the region, but because it is part of our core values as Americans.

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Sorry, but to me, it doesn't get more core American values than that.

 

Bear in mind that you probably have a greater statistical chance of being maimed or killed by a drunk driver than you do of being killed by a terrorist attack. A bit of googling turns up that:

Copy/pasted from the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) website (caps theirs):

IN 2013, 10,076 PEOPLE DIED IN DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES - ONE EVERY 52 MINUTES - AND 290,000 WERE INJURED IN DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES.

EVERY DAY IN AMERICA, ANOTHER 28 PEOPLE DIE AS A RESULT OF DRUNK DRIVING CRASHES.

IN 2012, 29.1 MILLION PEOPLE ADMITTED TO DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL - THAT’S MORE THAN THE POPULATION OF TEXAS.

Per the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, in 2013 there were 1,188 fatal car crashes in N. Carolina, resulting in 1,289 deaths. Not all alcohol related presumably.

Total fatal crashes in the US in 2013 = 30,057 resulting in 32,719 deaths.

Coming at this from another direction...

More than 30,000 people are shot and killed each year in the US. 2/3 of these are suicides but 1/3 are homicides or some other cause (accidents or other).

Or in other words, we lose the population of a small city every year to guns and car wrecks and this barely makes the news or gets most people's attention, both because we are used to it and because by and large we consider such numbers (or the potential risk they represent) an acceptable 'cost of doing business' for having individual rapid transit and ready access to firearms.

Certainly, given present realities, we should exercise due caution and vigilance while address the issue of refugees. I like much of what Aldrick says on this. But, at their present level of capability, ISIS can't match what we routinely do to ourselves let alone pose an existential threat to the entire United States. They are human beings (awful, depraved human beings to be sure), not Lex Luthor or some other comic book villain armed with superscience machines to make the country sink beneath the waves or the like.

A certain amount of perspective is in order.

Todd

 

My grandfather was twice a war refugee before he was even my age, accepted by a foreign government even though the war inside of which he was caught produced the most refugees ever known in human history up to that point. He was offered unreserved sanctuary immediately. In the most trying time of his life, with a father dead and a mother fighting, that simple display of humanity was one of the only ways that he could preserve his own. While he was able to return to his homeland, there are so many who haven't been able to, in this current crisis and in many before.

There are almost sixty million refugees known to be internally or externally displaced in the world in our times. The vast majority of them (80%) are being housed by developing countries with nowhere near the resources that developed countries possess, and many of the refugees are unable to flee the countries in which they are persecuted. Jordan and Lebanon have for decades hosted Palestinian refugees and now must take on enormous numbers of Syrians. The pressure is exceedingly high for countries like these. We in the developed world need to do more to resettle them in our own countries and better facilitate their resettlement in developing countries.

And Americans, you have only 22,427 submissions for asylum from Syria. As a proportion of your population, that is absolutely miniscule. Australia has justifiably been receiving massive flak for taking in only 12,000 additional Syrian refugees on top of the annual 13,350 quota for all refugees, despite that being a much larger proportion of the population. With the notable exception of Germany, few countries are pulling their weight, which allows the situation to worsen as we can't keep tabs on new the new intake. The security situation can't be ameliorated by pretending it can be totally avoided if only we shut the doors, and we should consider the humanitarian and security issues as inextricably linked, not mutually exclusive. While the alienation borne of our being coldhearted would be risky enough, I'd also like to point out that everyone faces the risks, but if our nations don't all put in some effort there will be some with a greatly elevated risk. That is not fair. The isolationist approach that you'd rather have more violence somewhere else than have a lower risk of violence overall, but with a very slightly higher one in your own country, is not cooperative or a reasonable expectation of a leading economic and political power.

 

The truth is that death can come for us at any time.

Anyone in this great country can snap and shoot up a school. Or do 42 fucking drive by shootings in a single night. My heart is with those refugees, but I know it counts for jack shit.

EDIT: To clarify, it's a god damn shame America's fear is stronger than its compassion.
But if there was any doubt about the moral code of the land we live in ... there you have it.

 

America is for the most part one huge Hypocrite and any decent person living in it should be ashamed of the way it functions.

 

God, those poor people. The amount of crap they get for stuff that isn't remotely their fault... I wish there was more I could do to help, because honestly the way we and so many different countries are reacting out of fear which turns too quickly into hatred... ugh. It's awful.

 

I've been running into a lot of the anti-refugee rhetoric where I live. It confuses me to no end. If we really think ISIS is despicable, doesn't it make sense to protect the people ISIS is hurting?

Also, I've been hearing my fundamentalist relatives saying that A) there is no effective way to screen the refugees and B) Obama won't allow Christian refugees. :dry:

 

YES, I would let them in.

I've never been good at saying things straightforwards, I'm afraid.:dry:

 

This is a pretty difficult topic, as I can really see both sides of the argument. You do run the risk of letting in terrorists, which is a very scary thought. That being said, you can't just let people fall victim to this stuff because they happened to be born in it's country of origin. I would say let people in, just be cautious. If we have airport security so strict that it can make people miss their flights, than we should be able to find out whether a person is safe to let in or not. A lot of people say we should shut off our borders to them entirely. I think that's a bit unfair. A lot of people are saying we should let in everybody except Muslim men. Those people are bigoted assholes. I'll be the first to admit that I am far too emotionally driven to deserve to have most of my political opinions taken seriously, but I feel very bad for the poor people in the counties where all of this is taking place.

 

I'm tired of people (mostly Politian's, but also self righteous people on facebook) using this as an example to further their own agenda. I think that both sides of the argument are legit.

I've worked with helping refugees learn English and I think that entering a country legally is a great thing. However being cautious about the impeding refugees doesn't make someone "heartless or wrong", simply because they are concerned about the matter.

ALSO, something to take into consideration, there is only a set amount of refugees that a country can safely accept without causing problems. For the last five years, the numbers of refugees accepted into the US varied between 50,000 to 70,000 people, EACH YEAR. The list of people looking to leave their own country is very long, and complex, and trying to get these people relocated, educated, and Americanized is also a long and complex method. As nice as it would be, we can't accept everyone.

Over the last few days I've gone back and forth over the matter. I'm still not sure where I stand, but there is a part of me that resents people fleeing instead of trying to make their country a better place for themselves. Of course it would be hard, but so was getting our country (the US) to the point where we are today.

 

Yes I would let them in. I feel the risk is worth helping people who really need it.

Side note: Have been in the middle of a family-friend email/Facebook/In person avalanche of what can only be described as hate speech against refugees. Thank you all for your compassion, I don't feel so alone now.

 

It's such a difficult topic and so many people are hurting. My opinion varies depending on the country. In America, Obama agreed to take in 10,000 refugees. That's really a small number and not unreasonable. The process to get into this country as a refugee is long and they do take security measures. Some people are worried that terrorists will get in along with the refugees. That's possible, but honestly, our borders aren't exactly air tight. Illegal immigrants come in all the time. If a terrorist wants to get in, they're getting in. The House recently passed a bill that will effectively halt Syrian refugees from coming to the US. This won't stop terrorism. Instead it will prevent people who are being terrorized by the terrorists from getting here. Keep in mind, moderate Muslims are being oppressed and murdered by ISIS. 10,000 refugees is really not a lot of people when compared to the population of the US. We have the resources to screen them.

All that said I'm concerned about Germany. I read that they are planning to take in 500,000 refugees a year, for who knows how many years? With so many immigrants coming in how will that affect their culture? Their economy? Will they be able to properly screen them? If I was a German citizen I'd be very concerned. But I live in the US and think we should accept more refugees.

I've noticed something interesting on Facebook. Many of my friends have opinions on this issue. My atheist friends want to welcome the refugees with open arms. My Christian friends want to shut them out. Also our conservative Christian presidential candidates want to keep the refugees out. It bothers me. Where's the compassion? That whole "love thy neighbor" saying feels pretty hollow...