Early in September of this year, the White House announced that it would make preparations to increase the amount of Syrian refugees the United States would admit into the country in the next fiscal year, which began in October of this year. The United States would increase the amount of Syrian refugees it admits from less than two thousand to at least 10,000 refugees. The initial feedback to this announcement was mixed; however, most of the negative feedback received was circling around the issue of terrorism and how the United States' international conflict is currently narrowed on "Islamic terrorism" or "Islamic extremism" and that Syria is a country that is filled with this type of extremism. However, the environment in social media was filled with horrifying and saddening images of Syrian refugees seeking asylum in multiple European nations. People on social media were somewhat sympathetic to the crisis and felt that the United States should take a somewhat larger role in this crisis that had been overwhelming nations of the European Union.
Fast forward to the events that occurred in Paris on November 13th in which ISIS executed three suicide bomber attacks and multiple public shootings, killing at least 128 people, according to French officials, and now there is a different picture being painted. People are now skeptical of Syrian refugees being allowed into the United States, which as led governors of many U.S. states to publicly announce that their respective states will not allow the relocation of refugees within state boundaries. This has also received mixed feedback as people are now singing a different tune about Syrian refugees. I have read some people on social media state that the United States should not allow any refugees into the country until every hungry child in the U.S. is fed or until every homeless veteran is sheltered. On the other hand, there are some that have expressed support towards the refugee by using past examples such as Steve Jobs's father being a Syrian refugee or Anne Frank being a refugee that was denied asylum during WWII.
U.S. politicians are weighing in on the refugee crisis now that Presidential campaigning has begun and the results are just as mixed. Republican contenders such as Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have suggested that we allow Syrian refugees into the country on a basis of religion, as in, only letting in the Christian refugees. President Barack Obama, on Monday, in the G20 summit in Turkey, addressed these remarks given by political leaders in the United States by completely denouncing them as "un-American" and "shameful". President Obama continued to support the White House's stance on Syrian refugees and stated that "our nations can welcome refugees who are desperately seeking safety and ensure our own security. We can and must do both." Personally, I have to agree with the President.
The United States has always been a nation formed by and grown by the compassion of allowing asylum to those peoples around the world who seek safety and security in the refuge of the United States. Those who suggest that the refugees must pass a religious test in order to be granted asylum in the U.S. on top of the extensive background and medical checks that they must go through when applying for asylum through the United Nations, placed to ensure the safety of those Americans already living in the United States, are just absurd. The United States has always been the "light at the end of the tunnel" for many groups of people fleeing from a war-torn country and we must continue to be the light for those in Syria. European refugees during WWII we desperately trying to get into countries of North Africa and the Middle East, the United States allowed Jewish refugees during WWII, Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s, and even Cuban refugees multiple times throughout its history into the country, and we must now continue this trend of compassion with the Syrians.
Those people that believe we should refuse to allow refugees into the United States should be ashamed. Their lives are not worth less than ours. Who are we to deny access into this great nation to another human being running away from brutal war and political persecution and seeking shelter for their families just because of where they're from, what they look like, or what god they believe in? Yes, there are political, economic, and social effects that would occur by allowing them in. Yes, we have our own children, our own veterans, and our own underprivileged classes living on the streets due to, mostly, our own faulty decisions. However, this does not mean that we should not be lending a helping hand to a group of people that are desperately running away from the exact same violence that Paris experienced this month. We must welcome the refugees from these war-torn countries and we have a moral obligation to care for them.
To conclude, I wish to share with you the sonnet that is engraved in the lower pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the first image of the United States that many refugees had in previous times when coming in through Ellis Island;
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus
