Vlad Stefanovich

Gregory Coles
English 138T
March 29, 2016

A Leader in Moral Courage: Why America Must Welcome Syrian Refugees

Throughout the last couple centuries, the United States of America has always been
looked at as the optimal destination for those seeking asylum from war, religious persecution,
famine, or any other circumstance deemed extreme enough to warrant a wholesale migration.
When the potato crop failed in the successive years of 1845-1849 and millions of Irishmen
decided to emigrate in the face of total starvation, it was the United States that allowed them to
settle their families.1 Similarly, when Jewish-Germans and Soviets sought asylum from the
oppression of their respective fascist and communist regimes, it was America that welcomed
them with open arms and the promise of a brighter future. Americas willingness to embrace all
those who seek to make it their home, coupled with the fact that life in the States represents a
much safer and more sustainable option than the alternative that many immigrants face, has
facilitated the emergence of a popular trope directed at the US. This trope is the American
Dream: an idea that any person can come to America and, through hard-word and determination,
raise their social status and self-actualize. It is common that most American citizens today can
trace their family history back to a single migration event where their ancestors simply decided
that they were fed up with poor living conditions and treatment. They each got a sweet taste of
the American Dream. Lets face it: we were all immigrants at one point in time or another and
the country that we now call our home did a marvellous job of setting up this opportunity with its
liberal immigration policies. Yet when the international community is faced with its largest

global refugee crisis since the displacement caused by World War II, America is
uncharacteristically unwilling to take the lead and set a moral example for its allies. According to
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of forcibly
displaced people worldwide reached 59.5 million at the end of 2014, with a 40% increase taking
place since 2011. Of this massive figure, roughly 11 million (19%) are Syrian and Iraqi refugees
fleeing the on-going conflict between ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), the Syrian
Government Army, and the ever-present international coalition of drones. 2 Since the onset of the
Syrian civil war, while Europe has been admitting a lions share of the refugees, the United
States has admitted just 1,854 - even as thousands are drowning in the treacherous journey across
the Mediterranean and many more are being killed in the countrys conflict. 3 Although the
Obama administration has promised to accept at least 10,000 more refugees in the fiscal year,
that is quite simply not enough to make the required impact that would alleviate the suffering
caused by crisis. The United States must accept their fair share of refugees in order to display the
moral courage to defeat the insecurity caused by potential ISIL terrorist attacks, to claim their
rightful portion of the international communitys responsibility towards the preservation of
human rights, and to prevent the consequences of the mass upheaval caused by continued
migrations into Europe.
In a Gallup poll conducted this past summer, 63% of Americans said that immigration is
a good thing for the country overall. But a Bloomberg Politics poll conducted in the aftermath
of the terrorist attacks in Paris, found that 53% of Americans are opposed to the idea of accepting
any Syrian refugees. Unfortunately, this contradiction is well in line with the history of the
American publics mindset when faced with the prospect of accepting refugees in general. In
1948, a Gallup poll found that 57% of Americans would disapprove of resettling 10,000

displaced Europeans into their state. In 1975, only 36% of Americans wanted to take in
Vietnamese refugees while in 1980, 71% of Americans were against Cuban refugees coming to
the U.S.4 However, in all of these instances, the refugees came despite the initial discontent and
have since successfully integrated themselves and their families within American society.
Furthermore, much of the reasoning behind why Americans were opposed to accepting refugees
was grounded in suspicion that one of them could be a communist spy - a commonly seen
phenomenon in the Cold War era but one that seldom proved true. The same trend is seen with
the Syrian refugee crisis as a majority of Americans feel too insecure about the possibility of an
infiltrating ISIL terrorist-cell to consider the well-being of millions of refugees.
Over the last four decades alone, the U.S. has admitted nearly 3 million refugees from all
corners of the globe including Malaysia, Myanmar, and Iraq. You wouldnt know it from the
rhetoric seen by potential Presidential candidates as Texas Senator Ted Cruz plans to introduce
legislation that would ban Muslim Syrian refugees from entering the U.S if he were elected
president. If there is any candidate who should appreciate the plight of refugees, its Cruz, whose
father fled Castros regime in Cuba in the 1950s. 5 Donald Trump has also pushed for increased
surveillance of certain mosques, a specialized Muslim database to track their activities, and has
even went as far as to propose banning entry to Muslims in general- an idea that has drawn
vehement criticism from influential world figures such as UK Prime Minister David Cameron
and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Members of the Republican Party have since argued that
a proposal banning members of a major world religion violated the party's conservative values,
the Constitution's First Amendment (which grants freedom of religion), and the country's
heritage of immigration. Despite that, these are the prime candidates for the Republican Party
nomination as their incredibly conservative views on Muslim immigration echo the insecurity

that Americans feel towards accepting refugees. While the Democratic candidates arent so
blatantly Islamophobic, neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton propose amendments to
President Obamas resolution of accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees this year and the general game
plan seems to be to play it safe. But of the millions of refugees admitted in U.S. in the past
several decades, including hundreds of thousands from the Middle East, none of them has ever
successfully completed an act of terrorism in the United States. 6 We have chosen to let people
starve, drown, or be murdered in the name of security. Our insecurity has led to a callous
inhumanity that quite frankly is shameful for a country of supposedly high moral standards.
Dont misunderstand: anxieties over refugees are not irrational. Just as there were bad people in
Germany, Vietnam. and Cuba; there are bad people in Syriaand everywhere else. But the
lesson that history has taught us is that we need to deal with these concerns without abandoning
Americas status as a moral leader on the world stage. It is time that we applied that lesson in
Syria today and allow for thousands of families to create a new life - one free of perpetual
upheaval and tragedy.
It is irrefutable that ISIL have committed a plethora of crimes against humanity. Of the
multitudes of people under their reign of control, most have only ever been subject to tragedy
and horror. Even now, the self-proclaimed caliphate continues to plunder the areas natural
resources, destroy ancient historical sites, and commit mass-genocide on a number of religious
and ethnic minorities. The UN Human Rights Watch stretches itself thin attempting to document
every atrocity that happens and at this point, the only thing that can be done is to nip the root of
the suffering in the bud and attempt to alleviate the pain felt by refugees. While a coalition of
forces is currently attempting to wrest control of the region from the radical-Islamist
organization, the focus lies on where displaced peoples should go while their home is trying to

stabilize. Thousands of Syrians are fleeing their war-torn nation in the hopes of achieving asylum
in Europe or the United States but all too often, their desperate journey results in more suffering
and struggle. At least 2,000 Syrians have drowned in their attempt to reach Europe since the
conflict in Syria began in 2011. The international community must decide upon carefully revised
immigration policies because the problem isnt just that the United States and European
governments arent doing enough to help Syrians theyre doing way too much to block them
from achieving safe haven. Unless there is a legitimate security, criminal or health concern, we
should allow many more Syrians to go through a process that allows them to establish a safe
home for their families in a timely manner. Syrians are generally well-educated, technically
competent, entrepreneurial; and as seen by the successful integration of 200,000 Syrians in
Lebanon in 1992, they offer many benefits to any host nation.7 Those grumbling about tax dollars
going to welfare for refugees can recall the pilot program run by the the Council of Jewish
Federations and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in 1990 that successfully settled and
established 8,000 Soviet Jews throughout America without a cent of taxpayer money. 8 All that is
required for successful immersion is a willingness to learn English and the opportunity to work the refugees need no handouts. More immediately, the United States should dramatically expand
its already generous aid programs to support Syrian refugee operations in Jordan, Lebanon,
Turkey and now in Europe. The alternatives to assisting and accepting Syrian refugees are
counterproductive both to U.S. foreign policy and to more urgent security concerns. Forcing
Syrian refugees to remain in ISIS-held areas, wandering like nomads from border to border, or
huddled in dusty, refugee camps like the Calais Jungle will only serve to increase ISILs
recruitment pool and undermine all efforts to ultimately stabilize the Middle East in order to
return the multitudes of displaced peoples back home. Rejecting Syrian refugee families could

further undercut efforts to engage with moderate Muslims and likely increase anti-American
sentiment in the Middle East and Europe. At the end of the day, the United States must claim
their portion of the responsibility for providing aid to Syrian families in need while
simultaneously aiding allied states that are now bravely bearing the full brunt of the refugee
crisis.
With the U.S having seemingly embraced a more isolationist approach, European nations
have had to step up and take the lead in dealing with this crisis. The UNHCR reports that a
million people crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe seeking asylum in 2015 and that 57%
of those people were Syrian or Iraqi in origin. 9 Figure 1 shows the path refugees have taken from
their countries of origin to Europe and the saturation of refugees in host nations is equally clearly
depicted. While the U.S. refugee process has practically screeched to a stop with some aid
groups reporting that refugee applications are taking 33 months to process, Germany has sped up
processing times and lowering waits from 7.1 to 5.3 months, even as it plans to accept more than
a million Syrians in 2016. When Germany alone (a country much smaller and with a greater
population density than the US, as well as fully aware of the ISIL threat of terrorism) has already
accepted 90,000 refugees and expects to vastly increase that number, the United States can
certainly improve their application process to ease the increasing burden on Europe.

Figure 1

While Americans
may scoff at the impending need for the U.S to ease the burden on Europe, the situation is in fact
only beginning to heat up. Aside from the obvious claims that the refugees cannot successfully
integrate themselves within their host country (as witnessed with the New Years Eve rape
scandals allegedly involving refugees in Stockholm and Cologne), this crisis has produced an
unimaginable amount of strain on the framework of the European Union and perhaps its greatest
double-edged sword - the Schengen Zone. To briefly summarize, most European nations have a
border policy where citizens of member states of the EU can travel freely (no visa required)
between other member states.10 These usually open borders have been locked down since the
influx of migrants has grown and the terrifying attacks in Paris and Brussels occurred. In
addition, not every European state wishes to participate in offering asylum to refugees so this has
created a migration scheme where millions of people are bottlenecked in Hungary and
Macedonia because their neighboring states have incredibly stringent border controls that slows

the flow of people to a trickle or because they reject the refugees altogether. Reports of terrible
conditions, crime, and violent clashes at the border fences flow in daily from the Balkans while a
growing sense of misled nationalism and Islamophobia continues to perpetuate in Europe. Even
now, nationalist politicians are gaining a flurry of support in the wake of terror attacks, reports of
crimes committed by dark-skinned individuals flood the press, and the incessant claim that
these refugees cannot assimilate within their host country is ever-present. The anti-immigration
United Kingdom Independence Party now has two Members of Parliament, and may win yet
more in the election next year. A third of Italians reportedly back the anti-immigrant Northern
League. The ultra-nationalist Marie Le Pen leads the polls in the French election scheduled for
2017. Either way, their anti-immigration rhetoric increasingly goes hand-in-hand with
Islamophobia. Take the UK Independence Party again who have suggested no more mosques
should be built in the UK. The National Front in France has coined the tasteless phrase
kebabisation to describe what they see as too much Muslim immigration. The Dutch politician
Geert Wilders, who runs the anti-Islam PVV Party in the Netherlands, has promised fewer
Moroccans as part of his drive to eradicate Islam from his home country. Perhaps most
worrying is Germany, which has become impressively welcoming of refugees and migrants of all
stripes. Der Spiegel reported on Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West
(PEGIDA); a new anti-immigration protest group has attracted crowds of up to 10,000. One antiIslamic blog, Politically Incorrect, is reporting 70,000 visitors a day. Thirty-four per cent of the
population, polls suggest, believe Germany is becoming Islamicised. 11 These politicians,
assisted by tabloid editors, have actively misled the European public on how Islamicised
Europe has actually become. As a result, the public in France believe that a third of their own
population are already Muslim (the real figure is 8%) while the British and Italian public believe
1 in 5 are Muslim (the real figure in both cases is more like 1 in 20). The same phenomenon is
observed in Germany, Belgium and almost everywhere else in Europe. The idea that Europe is
somehow being overrun with Muslims obviously has its roots in the Syrian migrant crisis yet the

fact that this imaginary Islamicisation is even a talking point bears testament to the powerful
fears of Islam that have been whipped up over the last decade or so. These fears lead to the
stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination of a group of peoples that have already experienced
more than enough suffering and hardship. While it would not cease the problems in Europe
altogether, accepting many more refugees into America would ease the feeling of pressure that
many Europeans are feeling with regard to having their home invaded by such a large number of
people and it would almost certainly allow for the millions of refugees waiting in limbo to finally
find a home safe enough for raising their families.
What has our progressive America become if we reject millions of people who need our
help implicitly or explicitly on the basis of their religion or the incredibly slim possibility that
they want to do you harm? What has our democracy become if we turn a blind eye to the refugee
crisis and the flagrant human rights violations that have happened as a result? There are over 1.5
billion Muslims in the world. If they really were so evil, as the anti-immigration politicians claim
they are what chance would Europe or the United States stand? Its time to recognize the
misery on our doorstep, to shrug off the prejudice foisted upon us by some of our political elite,
and to welcome the refugees of Syria as wholeheartedly as we would hope to be welcomed
ourselves. After enduring such hardship, they deserve a glimpse of the fabled American Dream.

References:
1

Grda, Cormac (March 1975), "A Note on Nineteenth Emigration Statistics", Population
Studies 29 (1): 143149, doi:10.2307/2173431, JSTOR 2173431
2

The Global Refugee Crisis, Region by Region New York Times (June, 2015).
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/09/world/migrants-global-refugee-crisismediterranean-ukraine-syria-rohingya-malaysia-iraq.html
3

Paris Attacks Intensify Debate Over How Many Syrian Refugees to Allow Into the U.S. New
York Times (October, 2015). http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/21/us/where-syrianrefugees-are-in-the-united-states.html?_r=0

Gallup Poll A Historical Review of Americans Views Towards Incoming Refugees

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/186716/historical-review-americans-viewsrefugees-coming.aspx
5

Cruz, Ted (2015). A Time For Truth: Reigniting the Promise of America. New York, NY:
Broadside Books. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-06-236561-3.
6

The Schengen Area. European Commission. 12 December 2008.doi:10.2758/45874. ISBN 97892-79-15835-3. Retrieved 13 April 2013
7
Cragen, Kevin.To undermine ISIS, we should welcome Syrian refugees Newsweek
(December, 2015) http://www.newsweek.com/undermine-isis-we-should-welcome-syrianrefugees-400229
8

Bier, DavidWhat the Holocaust can teach us about the Syrian refugee crisis Huffington Post
(October, 2015).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bier/holocaust-syrian-refugees_b_8351794.html
9

More than 1 million asylum-seekers reached Europe by sea this year. UNHCR Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (December, 2015). http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-30/morethan-1-million-asylum-seekers-reached-europe-by-sea-in-2015/7060012
10
Muslims discriminated against for demonstrating their faith Amnesty International
(April, 2014)
http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2012/04/muslims-discriminated-against-demonstratingtheir-faith/
11

Eleanor, Acer More needs to be done to address Syrian refugee crisis Human Rights First
(October, 2014)
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/blog/more-needs-be-done-address-syrian-refugee-crisis