I think you can make an argument for not simply opening your doors to everyone that claims political asylum or refugee status. So its probably a good thing we don’t do that.
It is my understanding that our vetting process for asylum seekers and refugees is more involved than our vetting process for people coming over on tourist visas.
My instinctive reaction to Republicans calling for only letting in Christians was shock but upon further deliberation I think we can prioritize religious minorities from that region and unlike here, Christians are actually being persecuted over there.
Truer words have not be said. Take this OP for example…
Assuming you didn’t pull these numbers out of your…er, out of the air…it saddens me that they are so low. We are supposed to be the nation asking to ‘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!’. Unfortunately, too many of my fellow Americans are scared by unreasonable fears about terrorists posing at refugees and what the actual risk of that is (low) or idiotic bigots who have forgotten what being American and what this country is actually supposed to be about.
So, no citation for this, but assuming it’s, again, not pulled out of the air, what has this got to do with Syrian immigration? Or Syrian refugees? Nothing. What it does show is that Syrian’s could get into the US without bothering to pose as refugees or immigrants. The US is an open country and people from all over the world come here every day. There are myriad ways that the assholes from ISIS or AQ or some other squirrelly terrorist group could get into the US, and eventually someone will…or some home grown asshole will kill a bunch of people with a gun or a bomb anyway, regardless of how many Syrian’s we turn away.
ISIS wins if we do the stupid shit you are advocating and turn people away that want to come here. It’s what ISIS WANTS US TO DO…to make those refugees more miserable knowing we are turning them away. They want that because it’s fucking embarrassing to ISIS that so many Muslims are freaking fleeing from their fundamentalist paradise to places like Europe, and they are doing everything they can to turn the west against those refugees so as to take away that choice and make them angry and willing to come back into the fold. And folks like you seem to not get that.
None have been Syrian or of Syrian descent. Time to pay attention to the news, they were European nationals of Algerian and Moroccan descent.
Yes let’s punish Syrians for something they had nothing to do, and in the meantime play into the hands of ISIS who planted that fake Syrian passport for this purpose and play into the hands of those right wing jerks.
I know, ISIS loves people like the OP. ISIS also loves right wing politicians in Europe and on the other hand they love what ISIS is doing by trying make refugees look bad with bogus Syrian passports.
Could you do it in person? Could you stand there and listen to a Syrian parent begging you to take his child to safety, just a warm place to sleep, some food, some clothes, in a place without fear?
You either have to have a hell of a lot of fear or you have to dehumanize people in order to tell someone ‘no’ in that situation. I think a lot of people are afraid, but to me this is a similar type of fear that folks have of nuclear energy…it’s ignorance fueled fear. And, of course, some folks are bigots and they do dehumanize people like the Syrian refugees. Guess it helps them sleep better at night or something.
Not only is it stupid and playing into the hands of ISIS, but it’s completely opposite of what this country is supposed to be about. It should be a bit shaming to Americans that European nations are stepping it up and doing what we should have been doing all along. And it’s not like this would be unprecedented…we did similar things in emergency situations during the Serbian wars (i.e. brought in refugees in large numbers to halt a humanitarian disaster).
Kind of wonder how things would be if Mitch Daniels was still governor of Indiana. In case anyone has forgotten, he was (presumably still is) a Republican and many encouraged him to run for President.
He is also of Syrian descent.
Gee, maybe we should retroactively remove permission for his grandparents to settle here and ship the whole family, including him, back to Syria? If he was still governor would there be a petition to toss him out of office based on his ancestry?
So if someone of Syrian background was good enough to be a respected Republican governor why aren’t people fleeing a horrific war good enough to come to America and live in safety?
See how stupid that sounds?
Steve Jobs was of Syrian descent, maybe you should give up your Apple products because otherwise your iPhone might commit terrorism! It’s all sleeper robots!
How about we drop Paula Abdul into ISIS controlled territory - she’s Syrian, obvious she’s a danger to American and not just to their taste in music.
We don’t need Terri Hatcher, either. Or Jerry Seinfeld. I mean if ALL Syrians are a mortal threat to us maybe we should with them what we did with the Japanese in WWII - put them in prison camps without trial, when they’ve done nothing wrong, and a generation later we can apologize and act like we’re sorry.
Seriously, it is a sorry, sorry day for America that so many have been stampeded into blatant bigotry, Ya’ll make me sick.
I don’t believe I’m going to change minds here for people who honestly think all Syrians should be tarred because of a planted passport on people who actually born and raised in France and Belgium. Those people are lost already. It saddens me that thousands of people are going to die of cold, hunger, drowning, and assault by bigots because so many have drunk the kool-aid on this one.
It’s the voyage of the St. Louis all over again, but on a scale of hundreds of thousands. The refugees turned away have nowhere else to go if the doors of Europe and North America are closed to them. A lot of them are going to die, and their blood will be on our hands.
Well, according to LiveStrong, M&Ms are the most dangerous candy.
As for the OP, I’m surprised it is as high as 41%. I remember not too long ago how the American people were rooked into invading a nation that posed no threat to us and had not attacked us. Support for that nonsense was as high as 90%.
Welcome to SDMB To save you the intermediate posts, I’m a Republican and didn’t vote for Obama. I’m also agnostic not Muslim. I’ll own being centrist and what you likely call a RINO in attempted derision. If you want to throw it out there, for completeness, I’ll accept that label with pride.
I’m okay with continuing to accept Syrian refugees.
Let me quote someone you probably won’t accuse of being a Muslim leftist as part of my explanation…
That’s a key part of my reason for being okay with accepting refugees from Syria. To get refugee status is a 12-18 month process with more detailed vetting than routine travel. Because the refugees get government assistance restarting their lives they are all plugged in to systems that keep track of where they are. That’s more tracking than a routine traveler gets. ISIS would be absolutely fucking stupid to use requests for asylum as a primary means of getting attackers in to the US. It’s slow, more thoroughly screened, and harder to disappear once here without raising suspicion. I don’t think ISIS is that stupid. In case they actually are that stupid, I’d hate to shut off one of the least effective methods for them to infiltrate the US.
Hands the refugee paperwork to an ISIS infiltrator [DirtyHarryVoiceOn] Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya? [/DHV]
I strongly suspect this belongs in the Pit. It’s certainly less amusing here…
Thanks to this thread I have eaten 2 “fun” sized bags of m&ms. Are we sure this wasn’t used on Fox and Fiends recently?
OP - I support allowing Syrian immigration because immigration is a core value of American culture. “My ancestors had their shot, so fuck everybody else” is not actually a compelling reason to stop.
To save you the intermediate posts, I’m a Republican and didn’t vote for Obama. I’m also agnostic not Muslim. I’ll own being centrist and what you likely call a RINO in attempted derision. If you want to throw it out there, for completeness, I’ll accept that label with pride.