Evaluation Essay
On November 20th, 2015 Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington provided his stance on the intake of Syrian refugees. In an emotionally charged essay he penned that while other governors have been quick to close their borders to Syrian refugees, he would welcome them into Washington. Gov. Inslee argues that America shouldn’t be swayed by fear to protect the innocent people fleeing from Syria, but welcome them with a realistic approach of a risk. I thought that Inslee’s argument on accepting Syrian refugees were effective because he supported his reasoning by using the example of Vietnamese refugees in 1975, argued that it was the moral thing to do and explained the robust screening process of becoming a refugee in the United States. After reading this article I felt compelled to look into the situation of Syria’s crisis, as I knew little about the topic.
Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, over 6 million people have been killed or forced to flee their homes (MercyCorps). These Syrian refugees are everyday people which include families, children, and the elderly who have no choice but to leave their violent surroundings and struggle to make a home in neighboring countries. While some countries like Lebanon,
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Inslee included was the difficult screening process of accepting Syrian applicants. I was actually surprised to read that the numbers of Syrian refugees arriving in the United States were at a miniscule amount. Gov. Inslee stated that “The numbers arriving in any one state are small: From Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015, 25 Syrian refugees settled in Washington State” (Inslee). Countries such as Turkey has taken the burden of accepting over 2 million Syrians, Lebanon over 1 million and Jordan over 600,000 (MercyCorps). The reality is that the US has done comparatively little to aid in placing refugees. This is partially due to our tough screening process to receive refugee
Syria’s civil war is the worst humanitarian crisis of modern time. The “Syrian Civil war Began in March of 2011, between rebel brigades and government force; economy and infrastructure is destroyed” (Library, 2016). “Divisions between secular and religious fighters, and between ethnic groups, continue to complicate the politics of the conflict” (Corps, 2016). Additionally, the Syrian civil war has taken a significant
Many people believe that the United States should not let Syrian refugees into the United States to escape war would damage the country’s safety and way of life, but the U.S. should allow them in because it provides these immigrants such as humanitarian aid, safer families, a well- rounded education, and a strengthened workforce. As the Syrian Civil War rages, ISIS bombs the Middle East, and Russia targets airstrikes, thousands of Syrian refugees flee their home and country with their lives. Children cannot go to school and parents are running out of money. They need aid, but in the war-torn cities there is little help that these people can find. Separated from their jobs, livelihood, and families, they can
Syrian refugees coming to America to escape prosecution in the middle east and the how hard it is for them to get in and live in America . According to last years article by the Homeland Security Committee, “More than four million Syrians refugees have fled the conflict zone in their home country, contributing to the largest global refugee crisis since World War II”(Homeland). The recent cause for so many syrians to migrate to america is to escape the conflict going on in their country. Since so many refugees are migrating to america and because of the recent wars and attacks people are having mixed feeling on letting them in. In a Homeland Security article “Warnings have been mounting that isis is focused on deploying operative to the was
It’s a sad day for the United States when a majority of its congress, governors, and all too many of its presidential candidates turn their backs on innocent refugees. But why would a country of immigrants and believers in the American dream turn away the Syrian refugees now seeking to be part of that American dream? Xenophobia and racial stereotyping.
Surrounded by death, rape, and destruction, refugees are begging for help. Yet, a country built by refugees escaping persecution is denying refuge to people who are fleeing for their lives. The United States is fighting to keep Syrian refugees where they are and this is in complete turmoil. Americans are scared that Syrians are a threat, yet half of Syrian refugees are children (Simpson). Syrian refugees should be allowed in the United States with much needed aid to ease their traumatic experiences as demonstrated by Shahad, a young Syrian refugee and the lifestyle at the refugee camp, Domeez Camp Kurdistan.
If a neighbor’s house was destroyed and they needed help, you, being a good person, would likely do everything in your power to help them. This is the position the United States is in as it must choose whether or not to allow Syrian refugees to enter the country. Syria is currently in a state of disrepair due to the wars raging in and around the nation. It’s people have been left with little support and even less resources, and as such many have fled the broken country, but they need a place to go. Syrian refugees should be allowed into the United States because America is supposed to be a land of opportunity, it is inhumane to turn refugees away, and it is the responsibility of a country at war to help the
turn very much on the outcome of the November 2016 presidential election. Refugee policy will be a hotly debated aspect of immigration policy throughout this year. The White House has attempted to block the flow by investing in Mexico’s interdiction efforts, which over the course of a year yielded failed results as the number of spontaneous arrivals at the U.S. border almost doubled between 2014 and 2015. While Congress appropriated $750 million to address root causes in the region, the pressures on the domestic U.S. refugee protection/asylum process are immense and at the brink of collapse, especially in light of an expected surge in the summer of
Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, many people have asked questions about what to do the displaced Syrians. Some are accepting and want the refugees to migrate to the United States. Others believe they are a risk to people already living within our borders, in multiple aspects. With the civil war continuously escalating and the number of displaced refugees increasing, something needs to be done. Whether it is deny them or give them access, an answer needs to be given. Since fears of refugees are unfounded and unsubstantiated, allowing Syrian Refugees into the United States will help improve the United States in all aspects.
The current situation in Syria is volatile and dangerous. There is an ongoing civil war in the country, and many innocent people are dying. Syrian government is being cruel to its citizens, in addition to a strong terrorist presence in the country. Men, women, and children are fleeing for safer regions, generating millions of refugees moving to surrounding countries and Europe. The United States is not letting many of them immigrate because some people fear that some of the Syrians refugees could be terrorists, which would put America in grave danger, but the Syrian refugees should be allowed entry because it is immoral to leave these people homeless and dying. These innocent people are victims of terrorism and the world, including the United States, is at war with terrorism; part of the responsibility of fighting this war is providing safety for innocent refugees.
On September of 2015, the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi went viral. “The toddler’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach had reverberated across the globe” (Parkinson & George-Cosh, 2015). Aylan’s family had “fled the brutal civil war in their native Syria and only attempted the boat crossing after Canada denied their application of admission as refugees. The image led to an astonishing outpouring of support for Syrian refugees” (Hein & Niazi, 2016). President Barack Obama offered to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees. He was criticized by a group of US, charities, because the United States had enough resources to resettle 100.000 Syrian refugees (Hein & Nazi, 2016). “In the US, the governors of 31 of 50 states issued orders to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees and by a vote of 289 to 137 the US House of Representatives approved legislation to ban the admissions of all Syrian and Iraqi refugees” (Hein & Nazi, 2016).
On September of 2015, the image of 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi went viral. “The toddler’s lifeless body on a Turkish beach had reverberated across the globe” (Parkinson & George-Cosh, 2015). Aylan’s family had “fled the brutal civil war in their native Syria and only attempted the boat crossing after Canada denied their application of admission as refugees. The image led to an astonishing outpouring of support for Syrian refugees” (Hein & Niazi, 2016). President accepted 10,000 Syrian refugees.” (Hein & Niazi, 2016). But “In the US, the governors of 31 of 50 states issued orders to prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees and by a vote of 289 to 137 the US House of Representatives approved legislation to ban the admissions of all Syrian and Iraqi refugees” (Hein & Niazi, 2016).
The first of the displaced Syrians arrived in Turkey in April 2011, and since that time the numbers have climbed to over 600,000 refugees1 as a result of the civil war that has turned more brutal and threatens millions of civilian lives. To provide the basic necessities for these émigrés Turkey set to work building multiple refugee camps in a variety of provinces close to the Syrian border. These camps currently hold over 200,000 refugees and most are filled or overflowing2. Yet the inundation of Syrians is never ending, with estimates predicting that by the end of 2013 over 1 million Syrians will be residing within Turkey’s borders. The Turkish government has already poured seven million dollars into sustaining these directionless and helpless people. But the problem arises when the truth of the matter becomes a reality; these Syrians have no place to go, and
In the case of the Syrian refugee crisis, my interest stems from my fascination with the glaring hypocrisy of American exceptionalism that bubbles to surface when the international crockpot of geopolitics turns sour with abhorrently violent dictators and the inevitable civil wars that remove them from power. The Syrian government, under the power of Bashar Hafez al-Assad, has resorted to violence against Syrian citizens who are critical of the government. The “crisis” we hear about developed during the Arab Spring of 2011 when al-Assad’s military shot into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators, killing three Syrians. From that point on, Syrians gradually became more and more motivated to revolt against the government alongside Assad’s defectors and end the dictatorship.
Over the course of less than five years, the Syrian civil war has caused the displacement of over 10 million people of this nation. The rise of ISIS in conjunction with a corrupt government has left millions of men, women, and children without a country to call their home, and the branding of refugee status. Within the international system, sovereign nations have a responsibility to provide for these persons under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Cherem 2015). While this expectation for more well off nations to provide for those in need across the world may be the moral answer, it is certainly no small task. With an increasingly dangerous and destabilized global system, in which terrorist attacks such as the recent incidents in Paris and Brussels are becoming commonplace, there is hesitancy amongst many western nations to harbor these at-risk populations. Regardless of the risks that states incur when hosting refugees, many nations do have a moral obligation to provide for the innocent Syrians that have lost their homes. European nations with adequate resources available to support their populations that are politically and economically stable do not have the moral authority to block refugees from entering their state. However, if the mass admittance of refugees into a state would likely cause the nation’s collapse, that state should not be morally obligated to accept more refugees that it can realistically sponsor.
The issue I have chosen to write about is the Syrian refugee crisis. I believe this is a pertinent topic of discussion because it is an ongoing issue that is quintessential of conflicts witnessed previously, and unfortunately is likely to be representative of many conflicts to come. This is a morally loaded situation because evaluating what actions are warranted, and even required, is the subject of moral judgements by both nations and individuals. In this essay I shall first offer a descriptive exposition of the apathetic attitude that exists towards aiding refugees, as well as the justifications for such an attitude. I shall examine how this positions can be better understood using moral foundation theory, and how it can be explained by psychological processes such as psycophysical numbing, social identity theory, system one processing and the identifiable victim effect.