Toe the Line: Penn Democrats | Syrian refugee crisis

America must once again be the land of opportunity

By Sean Foley 09/25/15 5:31pm

This past Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the United States will accept up to 100,000 refugees per year by 2017 — above the current yearly cap of 70,000 — in order to assist with the migrant crisis that has grown out of the war-torn Middle East, especially from Syria. This is a positive development, but it is not nearly enough to fulfill the obligation that the U.S. has to provide a safe-haven for those fleeing violence, persecution and abominable living conditions. The United States government should welcome any person seeking refuge, provided they do not pose a threat to our national security or to the public safety.

Syria has deteriorated since the onset of its civil war, and many people still desperately need protection from the brutal conditions. According to the United Nations, 4 million people have escaped the country, and 9 million people have been displaced. Elsewhere, more than 3 million people have been displaced from Afghanistan, Somalia and other countries.

People have wondered why the U.S. will not take in more refugees. When asked, Secretary Kerry commented that there is a limited amount of money from Congress and that there are security screening requirements.

Does America truly not have enough money to let in these starving, suffering people? Yes, the United States’ population is dense, but does it not have room to expand for those in need? The fact of the matter is that we have the capacity to do so much more good. Germany is expected to accept 800,000 refugees in this year alone. We have a population more than three times the size of Germany’s, and yet we are accepting one-eighth as many refugees.

And more important than these statistics, we in the U.S., more than any other nation, must recognize our history as a country not only of immigrants but also of refugees. Scores of people have come to our shores or crossed our borders in search of a new beginning, but often that journey was born out of necessity rather than opportunity.

Whether it was English Quakers running from religious discrimination, European Jews fleeing the Holocaust, Irish peasants escaping the potato famine or Vietnamese families leaving behind a country consumed in conflict, the U.S. has been, since its inception, a place of safety and security for the world’s refugees. Indeed, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, stressing the importance of welcoming displaced families, wryly observed, “There is a reason the number of O'Neills and Murphys in the U.S. exceeds by far those living in Ireland.” This is our history, and we choose to ignore it at our own peril, and — more importantly — at the peril of those who urgently need our help.

We have made the decision to exclude before, turning away refugees and leaving them with no place to go but their broken or inhospitable homelands. We cannot make that mistake again.

Today, we urge the United States to make true that promise engraved onto the Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

— Sean Foley

C'16

Penn Democrats representative 

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