The Biggest Risk
For the past four years, I have wondered when this moment would come. In April, I saw it happen to two friends who run an organization for girls in Nepal. One day, they woke up to go about their work, to do the same thing they had been doing for several years, and suddenly everyone was asking them questions. People wanted to help, they wanted to understand. My friends were overwhelmed — by the aftermath of an earthquake that killed 9,000 people, and by the attention suddenly thrust upon them by so many people, some of whom probably didn’t even know where Nepal was 24 hours prior.
This morning, before even getting out of bed, I checked my e-mail on my phone. “Article re: Syrian refugees” read the subject of the messages from my two board chairs, one here in Chicago and the other in Austin, Texas. “Here we go,” I thought.
On Saturday, I read online that a Syrian passport had been found at the site of one of the Paris attacks. And I felt disappointed, and a little worried, but not entirely surprised. There are many reasons and explanations for the passport. As this article points out, there is a lot to consider before jumping to the “terrorists are sneaking in as refugees” conclusion.
Of course, “there is a lot to consider” hasn’t stopped U.S. politicians from delighting us with the laziest knee jerk reaction possible: trying to keep Syrian refugees out of the U.S.
This morning, Illinois Governer Bruce Rauner joined seven other Republican governors in announcing that his state intends to stop taking in new Syrian refugees. The other states announcing the desire for a temporary ban include Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana and Massachusetts.
I can only assume, based on this news, that like many people, Governors Rauner, Abbott, Snyder, Bentley, Hutchinson, Pence, Jindal and Baker are confused about who refugees are and how they get to the U.S.
Happy to educate.
A refugee is a person who, “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” That’s not an interpretation of the word “refugee.” It is the official definition from the 1951 Refugee Convention and the definition Congress accepted when passing the Refugee Act of 1980.
So how do refugees get to the U.S.? Well, here’s the first important thing to know: they don’t show up at our borders and ask to come in. To even be considered for resettlement in the U.S., people seeking refugee status must first file a written application. They must pass a security background check. They must complete a face-to-face interview. This entire process takes about two years. Syrian refugees in particular have to be able to prove they have never had any ties to any terrorist group. After all of this, only about 2,000 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the U.S. since the civil war broke out. Overall, only 1% of refugees worldwide are considered for resettlement each year. Of that 1%, only about 10% are accepted — not just in the U.S., but anywhere.
This happens every single year. People who have been resettled as refugees have, in fact, been living among us for decades. And yet, maybe our governors haven’t noticed them before, because they haven’t been committing terrorism. Refugees were not, for example, the driving force behind the Waco biker shooting in Texas earlier this year. Refugees did not murder over 400 people in the city of Chicago in 2015. In fact, here is a comprehensive list of all the horrifying acts the American people have been able to commit against each other without much help from the outside.
These — along with the point that what happened in Paris is the exact mayhem and violence that Syrian refugees are fleeing — are the facts. President Obama is standing his ground on increasing refugee admissions over the next several years. GirlForward isn’t going anywhere. We will continue to provide opportunity to refugee girls who have experienced horror and fear and loss and are seeking peace here, in the country built on the promise of being able to start over. We will do this because of the facts, but also because the day after the attacks in Paris, I checked my GirlForward Facebook account — the one I use specifically to communicate with our girls, who often don’t have texting plans or other reliable means of communication. Here is what I saw.
These girls come from countries, regions, entire continents that are completely ignored in the media we consume every day. But here they are, in the bleu, blanc et rouge. They didn’t demand the world pay attention to what is happening in D.R. Congo or Central African Republic or Iraq or any of the countries where a dozen people dead is hardly a headline. Should we be surprised? I don’t think so. Our girls know that war and terror and fear do not discriminate. No one wants peace more than the people who know this violence all too well.
Once upon a time, France gave the U.S. a gift. Several years later, the words of a U.S. poet were engraved on this gift, among them,“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.” Turning our backs on Syrian refugees will not eliminate threats to the U.S. It will only threaten our values, our morals, and our identity as Americans. That’s not a risk we should be willing to take.
