I support Refugees, here is why.
There is no issue in the world right now I feel more strongly about than the plight of refugees. It really hit home for me when I saw the videos on 60 minutes of the sarin gas attacks in Damascus. It absolutely broke my heart. Currently there are about 60 Million refugees worldwide. One third are from Syria and Iraq. 48% of the population of Syria has fled their homes.
The conditions they are living in now are as bad or worse than the wars they fled. Daily they are surrounded by filth and disease. There is not enough food, shelter, clothing, or other necessities. These people are at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Their situation is desperate. The estimated cost is $100,000,000,000.00 annually to maintain this squalor. Add to that violent crowd control by their detainers. Many would rather return to their war torn nations, but they are not allowed to leave. These people are also targeted by smugglers and human traffickers.
Why it’s personal for me
The last time there were this many displaced persons was following World War II. My family was among the hordes. They eventually landed here in America, my homeland. I feel that these people should be given the opportunities afforded to my family in order to make a better life for their families. The president is going to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees asylum in the US next year.
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” -engraved on the statue of liberty
Are we safe
There is a rigorous screening process that takes more than two years. The fact is we live in one of the safest nations in the world. We can’t ignore the suffering of these people because we are scared of a threat that may or may not arise. Honestly homegrown terrorists are a bigger threat than immigrants at least we can screen for them. How quickly people have forgotten about Oklahoma City. Is the imperceptible increase in our safety worth turning a blind eye to what we can do to ease the suffering of these people.
An economic case
There is an economic case as well. Instead of the US sending millions of dollars of aid to these camps there will be a boom in housing leading to more construction jobs here. Also there will be a larger pool of workers to add value to the economy, more consumers, and creators. A case can be made that there are millions of unemployed Americans and jobs are scarce already, this is a separate issue that I have not sufficiently researched.
How will we act towards them
The current climate has been pretty cold towards immigrants in general and Muslims in particular. This is nothing new. When the Italians, Irish, and Polish immigrants came to this country they were treated quite poorly. My dad told me when he came over in the 1950’s kids would tease him about his poor English and most kids were not to associate with “that foreign boy”. In my city the Somali and Hmong are treated that way today and it makes me sad. Why have we not evolved as a culture to recognize that more things bind us together as human beings than differentiate us as ethnic groups. These people have endured horrors that few in this country can fathom and then there are those who would spit on them and discriminate. I find this deplorable in the worst way.
What am I going to do
I wrote a letter to my governor showing my support for his decision to allow refugees into my state. The governors of 27 other states said they would not allow refugees. I’m proud of him for taking a minority stance. I also signed up as a volunteer to mentor refugee families. They will need help finding housing and jobs, navigating the social and legal systems, registering for school getting drivers licenses and other transportation. I can’t help all 10,000 but maybe one or two and to those it may make all the difference in the world. I also pledge to donate all of the proceeds from this post to the UN refugee agency.
And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
-Matthew 25:40
General information on refugees
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/06/refugees-global-peace-index/396122/
http://blog.acton.org/archives/83541-explainer-what-you-should-know-about-the-syrian-refugee-controversy.html?gclid=CMv5pdbxv80CFQ2QaQodwjAIfQ
http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2015/243543.htm
Conditions in refugee camps
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/inside-the-harsh-living-conditions-for-syrian-refugees-in-turkey/
http://www.msf.ca/en/article/desperate-conditions-refugee-camps-causing-disease
http://www.businessinsider.com/conditions-in-german-refugee-camps-are-so-bad-that-iraqi-refugees-are-returning-home-2016-1
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/idomeni-refugee-dachau-nazi-concentration-camp-greek-minister-a6938826.html
About the vetting process
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/11/20/infographic-screening-process-refugee-entry-united-states
Donate to refugees
https://donate.unrefugees.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1873&ea.campaign.id=49686&ea.tracking.id=D15XSX163XXS
https://www.unicefusa.org/donate/help-syrian-children/16078?utm_campaign=2016_misc&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=20160107_google&utm_content=syria&ms=cpc_dig_2016_misc_20160107_google_syria&initialms=cpc_dig_2016_misc_20160107_google_syria
Volunteer
https://www.rescue.org/volunteer
Other ways to help
http://www.today.com/parents/refugee-crisis-how-you-can-help-syrias-children-t42261
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/refugee-crisis-what-can-you-do-to-help
I wish you had spent at least a portion of your time and attention on addressing the cause of these refugees having to leave their homes. No use hacking at the branches of evil if you do not destroy the roots. More and more branches will simply replace the ones you have dealt with.
Sometimes naive and ultimately ineffectual actions of altruists and the emotional responses they champion can sap the resources available to conscious efforts by those creating alternatives to the underlying situation.
Just sayin'
Evil lives everywhere Not just in Syria. Every human being has evil that lives in their hearts. The solution is to spread fellowship and it begins within each individual.
Some changes don't take effect simply because of a one-sided attempt at fellowship. Sometimes it takes generations.
People who feel this way need to listen to top "moderate" muslims talking about how it is ok to murder homosexuals, have sex with children...etc.
What we see today is a generation of people who have been led to hate the west because our leaders destroyed their world, murdered them in the name of "freedom", stomped the boot on their faces. Now the new generation is one that has a deep hatred for the west (for good reason).
The elite, though, wish to take that energy and redirect it toward bringing them now to the homes of their citizens while a paid off corporate media fuels hatred and division. During this time they intentionally control economies in such a way to make them collapse knowing that all the above is the PERFECT tool for killing their citizen's rights and ending up with ultimate control of both muslims and their citizens as a permanent slave class.
See beyond the pretty picture painted for you. I do not disagree with may of your points from a human empathy point of view...but this is not the whole story.
I agree! So we should all stop supporting actctions that are creating these refugees in Syria (use of the US/petro dollar being a major one). Act consciously, stop reacting emotionally.
This is the wrong reaction to a problem that does not need to be brought here, and your numbers are off, it is over 100,000 according to John Kerry's latest statement.
If you want to help people on the other side of the world, help them near their home. Importing them and expecting them to integrate into a society that is completely different than theirs is insanity.
The cost is too high. Over 1 billion dollars.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/30/heres-how-much-the-united-states-spends-on-refugees/.
The government wants to increase the numbers every year.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kerry-us-accept-85-000-refugees-2016-100-160512384.html?ref=gs
Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama want to increase the numbers even more than that!
That 1 billion + dollars could be spent on helping them near their own homeland, like this (sitting empty in Saudi Arabia now)
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2014/08/mina-city-of-tents.html
This desire to help is great, but not at the cost of wasting money that should be spent on our poor, sick, veterans, and seniors. The cost is too much.
This is also ignores the fact that the CIA is directly stating that ISIS terrorists will be trying to sneak in as refugees.
Bringing 100,000 unverifiable people into the US, with any small percentage of them being possible terrorists, when you could help them near their homes cheaper is insane.
Reality is not kind or pretty. Sometimes you have to protect your own first.
Feel free to start calling me names again. I don't care.
I respectfully disagree
I say it's good that we are bringing more. As for moving them from one camp to another camp it does not fix the problem. People in these camps are not allowed to reach their human potential or support themselves there for it's like burning cash on a hot day you get no return. These people need a home and a path to self sufficiency. The human capital and monetary funds are wasted on internment camps. By offering refuge the US can benefit from some return on it's investment and actually change the lives of these people. Also is it just to imprison people who have done nothing wrong? Is it right to imprison children? Would you choose to live in one of these camps you so vehemently support? Contemplate those questions as you sit in your air conditioned home and eat your double cheeseburgers.
Ah, the "but your privileged" guilt trip.
That's only effective on the emotional and uninformed.
If the facts produced by the government on how much it costs, the obviousness of their lack of desire to integrate, the officially recognized risk of importing killers, and the fact that it's taking away resources from our own poor, needy, veterans, and seniors, doesn't affect you at all. Then you obviously won't change you mind with another rational argument.
I'll just post a counterpoint for those undecided, and move on.
Syriangirl, explains the problem from a Syrians point of view and drops her ideas for a fix. It does not include moving to the US for handouts.
Interesting how you avoided the question. well played
Your response to @tinfoilfedora is entirely unfair. You assume he wants to keep the refugees in internment camps which he never says. He says he wants to help them closer to their homes. George Soros argued the same point. You are arguing for a massive shift in policy which would be massively unpopular among a large percentage of the population. That is no more reasonable an expectation than a sensible solution to the refugee crisis abroad which sees these people REMOVED from the internment camps and which, by the way, we did not FORCE them to enter. Their governments are a nightmare, while our government certainly played a part no honest person actually believes that things in the middle east would all be sunshine and roses had we never gotten involved. @Tinfoilfedora is not defending the internment camps, YOU are simply making the unreasonable claim that there are only two possible solutions: 1. Bring a lot here, and 2. leave them in internment camps. There are other possible solutions, again like the one proposed by Soros. But more importantly, they're not all coming here. It's not gonna happen. Grow up. Enter the real world. You wishing more people agreed with you isn't going to make it happen. Unless you can PERSUADE people like @tinfoilfedora and me that you are right and we are wrong, then you are serving your own ego. And sorry, but you're not convincing. You can wish we lived in a different world or you can start proposing solutions that both sides of the population can get behind. When you don't do that all you are essentially saying is, "Look how moral I am, I love refugees, I'm a better person than all of you, why are you all such meanies, why can't you be a hero like me." Well I guess that makes @tinfoilfedora and me evil bastards doesn't it? Just because we have reasonable reservations. So now you've created a scenario where it's Us v. You. Do you think that makes things better or worse? You and people like you are so eager to virtue signal by siding with refugees that you're creating a rift within your own population. Just be honest, you don't care about your fellow citizens. You don't care about their perspective or opinions. You don't care if they are scared of Muslim Extremism. If they're not from somewhere else, you just don't care about them. That should turn out great.
Thank you. so sorry I made an attempt to be part of the solution and wanted to share the path I took with other concerned people. I will never be able to convince you or tinfoilfedora thats fine you're entitled to you opinion. There are many facets to this debate and people get heated. I believe your fears are valid, but I also believe that courage is to act in spite of our fears. Please don't throw virtue signaling that is a copout. I am far from the moral high ground. I never made this me vs you I simply shared my views and the two of you came here for a fight. I answer the debate and you start personal attacks when I have not towards either of you. If people agree or want to help I gave them links. Refugees are coming weather you want them to or not. I feel like we should welcome them. I'm going to drop out of this now feel free to tell me I'm wrong anytime you'd like.
I do not disagree with your passion, just your direction. But you started this conversation so you should get something out of it :)
Nicely phrased, and right on the money.
The virtue signalling for foreigners while disregarding our own needy is what really ticks me off. Calling people names and insulting them for wanting the laws enforced and fellow citizens protected, is neither rational nor productive. With so much of the same crap in the news and newspapers, I have just heard too much bullshit like this to be quiet about it anymore.
I have decided that I will respond to this type of thing with a counterpoint every time, so the uninformed get at least a small dose of realistic information with the dangerously uninformed liberal do-good-at-all-costs propaganda that pops up around here.
Hope to see your counterpoints again as well.
Cheers!
@tinfoilfedora I am sorry I made you so butt hurt. You are arguing against things I never said. Warning more virtue signaling I do not ignore the needy in this country I donate to food shelves, and volunteer. I have done no name calling anywhere in this thread. I have not advocated violating or ignoring any laws. I just want to respectfully ask what action an individual can take. complaining about what other do with there time and money not withstanding. Please keep this discussion to the topic at hand. I want to hear solutions not whining. Things you and me can do not things we should expect others do on our behalf. Thank you for respecting the intelligence of the community.
My message here is what could 1 individual do to help. Call it virtue signaling if you want I'm glad you have a catch phrase. You are depending on the government to solve these issues or someone else. I feel strongly so I took a token action. Please provide alternative actions that on an individual basis the community can engage in to affect change.
also
https://steemit.com/steem/@william-noe/apology-to-the-community
Living in Germany and having seen how differently people have reacted to the flood of refugees we have seen recently makes me belief in the good will of most humans. Even though there are still some blinded people that don't realize how important immigrants are for a country and blame them for not having a job, most people here in Germany have welcomed many many refugees warmheartedly (not a native speaker here: does that work exist?) over the last months and it is good to see the same kind of helpfulness in other countries!
Great comment Xeroc, I tend to believe in the goodness of most humans too.
Upvoted you
Thanks for this post, somehow we in the United States manage to minimize the amount of discussion we have about refugees. As we have seen in light of the Brexit, that is certainly not the case in Europe. While I am glad the United States has agreed to take 10,000 refugees, I believe it is an underwhelming and frankly token response. We have a population of over 350 million people. 10,000 represents a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that population. On the other hand, countries like Germany are taking in millions despite their significantly smaller populations. I think that if we as a country cannot unite to help relieve mass human suffering in other parts of the world, it bodes ill for us trying to fix the issues we have in our own country as well. (see this election cycle.) Thank you for being part of the solution.
I fianlly got the donations sent. Thanks to everyone who supported the cause.
https://steemit.com/steem/@william-noe/keeping-a-promise-to-the-community-and-trading-steem-dollars-for-us-dollars