The Syrian refugee debates that I see flying back and forth across the online world make me depressed. Everyone has something to say on the topic, but apart from a very small portion of what I'm hearing, what everyone has to say, quite frankly, scares me.
There is not an easy or clear solution to what is happening, and there are a lot of moving pieces in play. We're facing what could very well be world changing event that will impact millions and millions of lives across many generations to come. No single country or civilization's well being is at stake, and any decisions made by the powers that be will have a dramatic, lasting impact that will likely extend far beyond what we can readily predict.
Precisely because of this, I am stunned and seriously disappointed by the fact that the overwhelming majority of arguments I'm hearing are based on opinions that swing toward one extreme or the other. The discussion has turned into a political battleground where the only two sides to be taken are "Shut the doors and lock them tight," or "Open the floodgates and let them in." The discussion hardly seems to be about the safety and well-being of anyone. Instead, the plight of the refugees seems to be twisted into a political weapon wielded by talking heads as a means of leveraging their personal agendas. Whether or not we accept refugees into our country is an issue that now serves as a rallying point for the drawing of political battle lines. So much breath is wasted on sorting people into the pro or anti refugee sides of the arena that very few people actually seem to be at all interested in finding a middle ground that will result in people being safe and free.
By no means can I claim to be an expert on anything political, economic, social, or religious. I am an inexperienced and relatively ignorant individual simply struggling to understand the enormous complexity of what all is going on. However, I believe that how the people of the United States respond to what is happening right now with the Syrian refugees is going to play a major role in shaping the kind of people and nation we will be for years to come. Even if my voice is simply one more to be lost in a shouting crowd, I think is important that anyone who cares about the value of human life and the future of this country should speak up and do what they can to ensure that we do not damn ourselves by making wrong choices.
As I survey the all too heated and emotional debate field that Facebook has become, I see three major battlegrounds upon which the refugee situation is being discusses: politics, economics, and religion/ethics. In order to try and be as rational and clear as possible, I am going to try and weigh in on the arguments I have heard across these three areas one at a time.
Political Arguments
The fact that this issue is a political issue at all turns my stomach, but I cannot say that I am surprised. We live in a political world, and there is no way something of this magnitude was every going to be apolitical. That being said, I understand that there are some genuine and recognizable concerns being raised when it comes to how accepting Syrian refugees into our country would change the culture and dynamic of the United States.
It seems somewhat naive to deny the fact that opening our doors to so many people from an environment so vastly different from our own would do anything but change the underlying culture and community of our nation. This understandably is frightening to people, and I won't pretend that it makes me doesn't nervous as well. At the same time, it also seems ignorant to turn our backs on these people and say that they are not welcome in the U.S. because they do not belong here. The United States became the United States in the first place because a large group of people chose to try and escape the tyranny of an oppressive government. Even after the revolutionary war, the "New World" was long perceived as a place where people could come and create a new life away from the horror of their homeland.
The United States is supposedly a melting pot of cultures from around the world. Particularly during periods of history such as the era of the Nazi regime in Germany, many people saw this country as a safe haven and an opportunity to start anew. Admittedly, the already established residents of this nation haven't ever seemed to appreciate large migrations of newcomers. The Irish weren't particularly welcomed at first; nor were the Chinese. At the same time, we are a country with a history very much founded upon the idea that this is where people seeking to find a new home could find one. Claiming now that we have our own established nation and culture with no room or place for these refugees spits in the face of that heritage. It is not only naive to say that these refugees need to simply fix things back at home for themselves, but it is hypocritical, and hardly more reasonable than telling Jews fleeing the Nazis that they needed to go back to Germany and Poland to fix their own problems.
Even if we, as a nation, choose to completely throw away our historic reputation as a land of opportunity, I don't see how it actually makes good political sense to turn away the Syrian refugees completely or claim that "they are a problem for someone else." The people are fleeing for fear of their lives from people as evil as the Nazis or Soviets. Syria is a war-zone such as the United States never has never seen, or leastwise not since the Civil War. The front lines are where these people actually live and where they are expected to raise their children. If they are not welcomed anywhere else, they will be forced to return home, and if that is all that is left to them, they will be faced with joining the enemy or being killed. If the rest of the world does not provide some kind of shelter or safe haven for the endangered people of Syria, they will be forced into a corner where their only remaining hope of survival is in the ranks of our common enemy. No doubt many of them would rather die than join ISIS, but desperate people resort to desperate measures.
There seems to be a lot of evidence that suggests the attacks in Paris were not actually carried out by refugees at all, but by ISIS members and/or sympathizers already living in Paris. Even if this isn't true, and even if a handful of refugees did commit such heinous crimes, accusing the entire fleeing Syrian population of being part of ISIS makes ISIS the only group left willing to accept them. Does that really make sense or advance our efforts to defeat the enemy?
At the same time, there are legitimate security and safety issues caused by unquestionably welcoming in anyone and everyone who claims to be a persecuted refugee. That would give enemies like ISIS the prime opportunity to plant soldiers and suicide bombers among the innocent, and there is a very real risk to the lives our people present in presenting such an opportunity.
Opening our doors in the name of compassion sounds wonderful, but it cannot be done recklessly without creating the potential for more harm to be done. One of my Facebook friends suggested that we should prioritize families first, and I think that is certainly one step among many that could and should be taken along the path of trying to prevent the enemy from slipping through. Anyone coming in should be vetted and they should be vetted thoroughly. Obviously there is no way we can guarantee that someone won't turn out to be a killer or a madman, but honest efforts can be made to ensure that the people coming in are truly in need and not hellbent on killing U.S. citizens.
Yes, such a process and system would limit our ability to help people, because there are only so many individuals that we can put through said process at a time. At the same time, even while we want to help those seeking refuge, we cannot needlessly or recklessly endanger our own people and families while we do so.
Now, I have heard a lot of people insist that there is no way we have the resources to vet incoming refugees sufficiently. Like I said, I am no professional, and maybe I am wrong, but I don't actually believe that is true. However, issues pertaining to resource availability fall into the next field of discussion...
Economic Arguments
There seems to be real concern that letting refugees into the U.S. would cripple our economy. The claim is that there simply aren't enough resources available to handle such an influx of people, and I've heard numerous accusations that the Syrian refugees would simply expand the welfare portion of the population leeching off the government. I honestly don't buy all of those arguments, and I think they actually speak more to flaws in the way we run our country more than the dangers of letting in refugees.
For one thing, our nation is wasteful beyond belief. We waste so much food and so many resources, it is truly astonishing. This country has so many resources that we apparently don't feel the need to use them efficiently or wisely at all. Food is thrown away and left to rot in the field, because we're too picky or too lazy to preserve it. Products are thrown away and discarded because they're not good enough for us or because we want something new and better. We demand spacious living quarters and extravagant homes because we can, and because there is a lot more room here than there is in other parts of the world.
Claiming that we don't have enough resources to support refugees is either lazy or selfish or both. We can have more than enough resources is we just learn how to not be so wasteful in our actions. Even if letting in these people meant accepting less for ourselves, we can handle it. Very, very few people in this country are actually living in anything remotely close to the horrid conditions these people are fleeing from, and if things get a little bit more crowded because of their presence, we can suck it up and deal with it.
As for whether or not the Syrian refugees would all just become welfare vampires sucking the life out of the hard working and ambitious people of this nation.... maybe we should just not have a system in place that makes it so easy for that to happen? I know that changing the way our welfare system works in this country isn't going to be easy, and honestly, it probably isn't ever going to happen. However, that isn't the fault of the refugees, and that is another thing that we, the people of the United States that are already living here, are responsible for fixing.
These refugees actually represent the possibility for an inflow of hard working, dedicated, and (in time) well educated and skilled members of society into our economy. They represent potential doctors, engineers, scientists, musicians, and business people as much as they represent potential welfare dependents. If we welcome them into our country, our responsibility doesn't end when they cross the border and/or set foot on our soil. However, if we can make sure that they are given the chance to learn and to work by encouraging them to fight for their new lives instead of making monthly checks from the government the easiest and safest choice, our country could actual benefit in the long run.
The problem is that no one wants to look at the long run, and no one wants to honestly accept the fact that job competition is good for the economy as a whole.
Going back specifically to whether or not we have the resources to sufficiently vet incoming refugees, something I'm hearing a lot of people say is that we already can't keep people from getting across the Mexican border. I also keep hearing people say that we can't take care of our own poor and homeless people. Again, these are issues that we have internally that we need to solve ourselves, and they are not the fault of the refugees who are looking for a place to live without the threat of a bomb being dropped on their house or their children getting blown up in the street.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure all of those problems are just most examples of how we are not using our resources efficiently rather than proof that we don't have enough resources or the means of getting the job done. Maybe we should reconsider our priorities and reevaluate where we are spending our time and efforts before complaining that our money is spent and our pockets empty.
Religious/Ethical Arguments
I have seen people argue that the United States has no moral obligation to lend aid to the Syrian refugees. I agree.
Our country, as a country, is obligated to care for its own people and look out for the best interests of its citizens. There is no moral obligation for our nation to try and fix problems for the rest of the world, and the mindset that the U.S. should serve as the nanny and savior for the entire planet has landed us in trouble in the past. The government's job is to ensure the safety of its citizens; not the citizens of the rest of the world.
However, that doesn't mean that we, the people of the United States, do not have a moral obligation to help the people of Syria in desperate need. If you are a Christian, and I'm sorry to say that many of the people arguing against the refugees are Christians, then I honestly do not understand how you can claim that this plight is not our problem.
We have needy and endangered people coming to our door begging for aid. There are numerous accounts in the Bible spanning both the Old and New Testaments that honor those who open their doors to the needy and provide assistance to the poor and hungry. Time and again, God's people sought refuge both from one another and from strangers, and those who took on the burden and the danger of providing that refuge were always counted blessed for doing so. Generosity and compassion, even tot he point of endangering one's personal safety and well-being has played a crucial role in the history of Christianity four thousands of years.
The fact that many of these refugees are Muslim in no way diminishes the need for compassion and self-sacrifice on our part. For one thing, not all Muslims want to see every non-Muslim dead anymore than all people claiming the name of Christian share the same confession. For another thing, we are not in a position to declare that some people are more worthy of receiving compassion than others. When someone calls to us for help out of fear for their life and the lives of their family, why is it OK for us to decide whether or not we help them based on their religion? These are human beings and the lives of those fleeing Syria are just as valuable as our own lives. Particularly anyone in the pro-life community arguing that we should deny refugees a safe haven based on their religious beliefs should be ashamed of their hypocrisy.
The questions we should be asking are "Do these people need our help?" and "Can we provide that help?" not "Are these the kind of people we want to help?" The lives of innocent men, women, and children are at stake, and they are specifically coming to us asking for help. That's all we should need to know before we start looking for ways to help them to the best of our ability.
Maybe this isn't a burden that our government is responsible for taking on, but can we really say that it is not one in which we all hold a stake as individual human beings? What moral or religious justification is there, really, for turning our backs on the Syrian refugees? If you set aside selfish political and economic concerns along with personal vendettas, what arguments are left to keep the doors shut to the refugees?
There is a video that I've seen getting passed around on Facebook that attempts to use gumballs as a means of constructing an argument to explain why immigration is not an effective means of helping the impoverished people of the world. The argument essentially boils down to "Even by accepting millions and millions of people into the United States, we wouldn't be able to make a dent on the overall poverty in the world." That, in and of itself, is probably a fair statement. The U.S. can't and shouldn't try to solve all the world's problems.
However, every life that is changed for the better through immigration is a victory. Every family that finds an opportunity for a new and safer life in this country is an opportunity to give thanks. Every human life is precious regardless of what corner of the world it comes from, and we should not diminish the value of a life saved or spared even if it is just one among billions. There is much than we cannot change in this world, but that doesn't mean we should turn our back on the opportunity to do good when it is presented to us.
Syria is a country being torn apart by more than just poverty. The lives of these refugees are at risk, not just because they are poor, but because their homeland is literally being reduced to rubble. If you look up pictures of war torn Syria, it is not hard to understand why these people are desperate to find a new land to call home. Even if the United States and other nations of the world go in and try to overthrow the violent and oppressive powers at play within Syria, anyone who chooses to stay behind will be living in the middle of a literal battlefield.
It is undeniable that these people are in need of help and that they are coming directly to us to ask for it. That alone seems to me like it should be enough for us to decide that we should be doing something, and our debates and discussions surrounding this issue should be focused on "how" and "to what extent" can we help rather than whether or not we should.
I don't have a solution. I don't know why kind of an arrangement could best help these refugees without needlessly endangering others. I don't know what needs to happen before we have the ability to handle a sudden inflow of refugees, and I'm not sure where in this country they would be best situated to start fresh and begin the process of becoming productive members of society. I don't know, and I'm not sure anyone does right now, but that's why we should be talking about it. That's why we need to stop using this issue as a podium for lambasting one political nominee or another and why we need to start having serious conversations about whether or not we are equipped to lend aid to those calling for it. If we're not equipped, we need to be asking why we aren't and what we can do to change that.
If you ask me, we need to help them people to the best of our ability; not because the United States is the shining savior of the world, but because their lives are worth it. We should be smart about. We should be safe, and we should be careful, but we should also be generous, compassionate, and focused on preserving life above preserving personal comfort and culture.
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