Letter: Our Refugee Obligation

lettertotheeditor

To the Editor:

For four years civil war has raged across Syria, and for four years Syrian refugees have fled to the United States. Only recently, however, has this situation come under scrutiny by the press and the public, a reaction to the terror attacks in Paris. Reactions have ranged from proposals for religious testing of refugees to stopping resettlement programs altogether, with many states following this course of action.

While media coverage has been awash in discussions of the morality and feasibility of these knee-jerk reactions, one important question is sorely missing: are any of these suggestions actually legal? The answer to that question is an unequivocal “no.” The United States, being party to the 1967 protocol of the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, is legally bound to accept any and all refugees regardless of “…race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion…” The choice whether or not to accept refugees is not one we can make, we are bound to aid those fleeing persecution without prejudice or hesitation.

The United States has made the commitment to accept 85,000 refugees in the coming year, but yet many governors and presidential hopefuls insist that we turn our backs on our international obligations in the service of fear and xenophobia. There is one exception worth noting in the Convention, and that is the provision that refugees may be rejected if well-founded security concerns exist pertaining to their entry. Now, some claim that in the wake of Paris, there have arisen security concerns that warrant such actions, such as the Republican presidential hopefuls or the speaker of the house, and thus the legality of barring refugees is not in question.

This view shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how refugee resettlement works. In short: it is an arduous process, requiring approval by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it is, without question, the most rigorous security process for anyone entering the U.S. There can be no argument that any Syrian refugee vetted this way, especially considering that the majority of these refugees are female-headed households with children, poses a credible risk to the U.S. and warrants rejecting those refugees, resigning them to a fate at the murderous hands Assad and ISIS.

With these facts in mind, we should all applaud Connecticut’s, and the governor’s, decision disregard the fear mongering that has gripped so many other states and to continue admitting Syrian refugees. International obligation is not a buffet, subject to the country’s current appetite; it is a promissory note to those that are driven from their homes, prosecuted for their religion, their politics, their ideas. Just down the road, in Upper New York Bay, there is a statue, and at its base are engraved the words “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It is not time for Connecticut, or the nation, to shrink from that commitment.

Grant MacFaddin
Cos Cob

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