Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees
Published on
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
by
Informed Comment
Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees
by
Juan Cole
(Photo: Reuters)
Some half of US governors have announced their opposition to their states
taking in Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks. Although they can bother
refugees, they can't actually dictate to people who are here legally where
they can live. But anyway, here are the reasons for which these
announcements are a form of political hysteria and not grounded in any
rational policy considerations:
1. The attackers in Paris were European nationals. The Syrian passport found
near one of them was a fake. So are the governors opposed to Belgian
immigration into the United States?
2. The attackers were not refugees. They were born in Europe. Refugees are
poor and lacking in knowledge or resources about their new environment. The
attackers knew exactly where everything was that they wanted to assault and
were hooked in with arms smugglers and other hard-to-discover criminal
networks.
3. There is no rational reason to bar Syrian refugees but accept refugees
from other conflict areas. The US already admits 70,000 refugees every year,
but only took in about 400 Syrians last year. Most refugees are fleeing
conflict situations or oppressive governments, and if you wanted to be
paranoid about them you could fear them all on the same grounds that the GOP
fears Syrians. The US has accepted a former child soldier from the Congo
(might have skills). In 2014 the US accepted 758 refugees from Afghanistan;
how are they different from Syrian refugees? And here's the kicker: the US
accepted 19,651 refugees from Iraq last year! It is completely irrational to
single out Syrians if you are going to take in Iraqis.
4.These refugees undergo at least 18 months of background checks, contrary
to what Sen. Mario Rubio (whose parents were Cuban immigrants to the US) has
alleged.
5. The Economist points out that since 2001, the US has admitted roughly
750,000 refugees and none, zero, nada have been accused of involvement in
domestic terrorism aimed at the US homeland (2 Iraqis were accused of trying
to help a terrorist organization back in Iraq).
6. The need is urgent. Of the some 22 million Syrians, a good half are
homeless. About 7.5 million have been displaced within the country and some
4 million have been forced abroad. Little Jordan (pop. 6 million) has taken
800,000. Little Lebanon (pop. 4 million) has taken 1.2 million. Turkey (pop.
75 million) has taken 2 million. Sweden is accepting Syrian refugees without
announcing limits. Germany is taking tens of thousands (though probably most
of the refugees Chancellor Angela Merkel has accepted are not Syrians).
Winter is arriving and the refugees have no proper shelter, clothing or
nourishment. The US has to step up in the face of one of the world's great
humanitarian crises.
7. Syrian refugees are not guerrilla fighters or terrorists. They are
fleeing the oppression of the Bashar al-Assad government or the brutality of
Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda. The are the victims of America's enemies.
8. The US owes these refugees. Without the US invasion of Iraq in 2003,
there would have been no al-Qaeda in that part of the world, and no al-Qaeda
offshoots like Daesh/ ISIL. Why do the governors (most of whom supported the
invasion of Iraq) think the US can go around the world sowing instability
and being responsible for creating the conditions that lead to millions of
refugees but then can avoid the responsibility of ameliorating those broken
lives?
9. Some US politicians, such as Ted Cruz, have spoken of taking in only
Christian refugees. That step would be unconstitutional. But let's remember
that such a policy would have excluded Albert Einstein from coming to the US
in 1933, after the Nazis seized his property in Germany. You wonder without
such refugee intellectuals, would the US have fallen behind Nazi Germany on,
e.g., constructing an atomic bomb?
10. Cruz's call for Christian refugees to be given special privileges
reminds us of the the racist Chinese Exclusion Act, which derived in part
from Christian American dislike of those they called "heathens." Religion is
often an element in the construction of ethnicity, so the privileging of
Christianity has a long history of being a stealth form of racism.
C 2014 Juan Cole
Juan Cole
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University
of Michigan. His new book, The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is
Changing the Middle East (Simon and Schuster), will officially be published
July 1st. He is also the author of Engaging the Muslim World and Napoleon's
Egypt: Invading the Middle East (both Palgrave Macmillan). He has appeared
widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle
East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited,
or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on
the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees
Published on
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
by
Informed Comment
Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees
by
Juan Cole
. 3 Comments
.
. (Photo: Reuters)
. Some half of US governors have announced their opposition to their
states taking in Syrian refugees after the Paris attacks. Although they can
bother refugees, they can't actually dictate to people who are here legally
where they can live. But anyway, here are the reasons for which these
announcements are a form of political hysteria and not grounded in any
rational policy considerations:
. 1. The attackers in Paris were European nationals. The Syrian
passport found near one of them was a fake. So are the governors opposed to
Belgian immigration into the United States?
. 2. The attackers were not refugees. They were born in Europe.
Refugees are poor and lacking in knowledge or resources about their new
environment. The attackers knew exactly where everything was that they
wanted to assault and were hooked in with arms smugglers and other
hard-to-discover criminal networks.
. 3. There is no rational reason to bar Syrian refugees but accept
refugees from other conflict areas. The US already admits 70,000 refugees
every year, but only took in about 400 Syrians last year. Most refugees are
fleeing conflict situations or oppressive governments, and if you wanted to
be paranoid about them you could fear them all on the same grounds that the
GOP fears Syrians. The US has accepted a former child soldier from the Congo
(might have skills). In 2014 the US accepted 758 refugees from Afghanistan;
how are they different from Syrian refugees? And here's the kicker: the US
accepted 19,651 refugees from Iraq last year! It is completely irrational to
single out Syrians if you are going to take in Iraqis.
4.These refugees undergo at least 18 months of background checks, contrary
to what Sen. Mario Rubio (whose parents were Cuban immigrants to the US) has
alleged.
5. The Economist points out that since 2001, the US has admitted roughly
750,000 refugees and none, zero, nada have been accused of involvement in
domestic terrorism aimed at the US homeland (2 Iraqis were accused of trying
to help a terrorist organization back in Iraq).
6. The need is urgent. Of the some 22 million Syrians, a good half are
homeless. About 7.5 million have been displaced within the country and some
4 million have been forced abroad. Little Jordan (pop. 6 million) has taken
800,000. Little Lebanon (pop. 4 million) has taken 1.2 million. Turkey (pop.
75 million) has taken 2 million. Sweden is accepting Syrian refugees without
announcing limits. Germany is taking tens of thousands (though probably most
of the refugees Chancellor Angela Merkel has accepted are not Syrians).
Winter is arriving and the refugees have no proper shelter, clothing or
nourishment. The US has to step up in the face of one of the world's great
humanitarian crises.
7. Syrian refugees are not guerrilla fighters or terrorists. They are
fleeing the oppression of the Bashar al-Assad government or the brutality of
Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) or al-Qaeda. The are the victims of America's enemies.
8. The US owes these refugees. Without the US invasion of Iraq in 2003,
there would have been no al-Qaeda in that part of the world, and no al-Qaeda
offshoots like Daesh/ ISIL. Why do the governors (most of whom supported the
invasion of Iraq) think the US can go around the world sowing instability
and being responsible for creating the conditions that lead to millions of
refugees but then can avoid the responsibility of ameliorating those broken
lives?
9. Some US politicians, such as Ted Cruz, have spoken of taking in only
Christian refugees. That step would be unconstitutional. But let's remember
that such a policy would have excluded Albert Einstein from coming to the US
in 1933, after the Nazis seized his property in Germany. You wonder without
such refugee intellectuals, would the US have fallen behind Nazi Germany on,
e.g., constructing an atomic bomb?
10. Cruz's call for Christian refugees to be given special privileges
reminds us of the the racist Chinese Exclusion Act, which derived in part
from Christian American dislike of those they called "heathens." Religion is
often an element in the construction of ethnicity, so the privileging of
Christianity has a long history of being a stealth form of racism.
C 2014 Juan Cole
/author/juan-cole
/author/juan-cole /author/juan-cole
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University
of Michigan. His new book, The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is
Changing the Middle East (Simon and Schuster), will officially be published
July 1st. He is also the author of Engaging the Muslim World and Napoleon's
Egypt: Invading the Middle East (both Palgrave Macmillan). He has appeared
widely on television, radio and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle
East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited,
or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles. His weblog on
the contemporary Middle East is Informed Comment.
