Juan Cole: Top 10 Reasons Governors are Wrong to Exclude Syrian Refugees

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/17/top-10-reasons-governors-are-wrong-exclude-syrian-refugees

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.

[Festivito]

1. 11. Treating people badly inures fear; solidifies hatred; invokes atrocious behavior.

... sewn seeds sour-success