By the Alliance of Jewish Progressives
For most of us living on a university campus, the plight of Syrian refugees feels far away. We can read chilling statistics and click through photo series, but ultimately, this is a crisis to which we can close our eyes.
After President Barack Obama announced his plan to resettle 10,000 refugees this year, more than half of American governors coolly replied they will not allow refugees into their states. Notably, even our own New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Radio host Hugh Hewitt asked the governor, “What if they were orphans under the age of five?” Christie stood his ground under the pretense that the United States lacked “appropriate vetting.”
There are many reasons for accepting Syrian refugees into United States. First, there are important historical reasons for continuing a bold tradition of cooperation. We can pull from America’s proud history of acceptance, tolerance and freedom of religion — that our country was founded upon these principles should not be forgotten. Conversely, we can also pull from America’s darkest chapters, when we interned Japanese-American citizens or refused to harbor refugees from our war in Vietnam.
Second, there are important present reasons for holding powerful nations to a high standard of compassion. It is not only in our moral interest, but also our political interest, to accept refugees. Currently, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4.4 million Syrian people have been displaced. Ninety-five percent of the refugees have fled to five countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. This influx of people has made it much harder for these countries to meet the basic needs of their people, threatening instability.
The United States has the capacity to meet their needs and our own, and we especially have the capacity to host more than 10,000 refugees. A plan to help stabilize that region must not focus only on aid, but also on resettlement assistance. Even if the United States accepted 100,000 refugees, it would still only be a fraction of the necessary assistance. But it would be a step in the right direction.
As members of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives, our past history of oppression compels us to support the Syrian refugees. In 1942, the St. Louis came to America's shores with Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi horrors in Europe. It was turned away, and most of those refugees met their death. We have a responsibility to speak out as history threatens to repeat itself, both as descendants of a people who recently were refugees and as Americans who now have the privilege of being safe on shore.
We fear that history is repeating itself. We feel our state, our country and our world turning away from the innocent, shielded by the umbrella rhetoric of “us” and “them.”
For the claim that these refugees are dangerous and our country cannot accept them because of security concerns, we point to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, a State Department initiative. This program would most likely be the primary means of entrance for Syrian refugees and through it all refugees undergo intense security screenings. This vetting process includes multiple identity investigations and in-depth interviews by specialized Department of Homeland Security officers. We must refuse to let our fear overcome our trust in the American government’s ability to distinguish between victims desperately in need of refuge and potential terrorists.
Abdul Ali, in his poem “On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream,” reminds us of our country: “Exiled from their villages, learning to say hello with accents thick with nostalgia … border crossing is quintessentially American.”
Being an immigrant is quintessentially American, even if that immigration is spurred by the violence and harsh situations that create refugee crises. As Jews, we were accepted as Americans, but our numbers were restricted, and we were often discriminated against. Now we are, in this generation, truly accepted as Americans, and we owe it forward to this current generation of refugees.
Join us this week as we table in the Frist Campus Center, in partnership with Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity and the Center for Jewish Life, providing information to learn more about the crisis, as well as opportunities to get involved in supporting Syrian refugees. We will provide email templates to send to your Congressperson in support of accepting refugees, collecting money for care packages for refugees who arrive and hosting a petition advocating for acceptance of additional refugees who have moved to New Jersey. Join us as we stand against prejudice; join us in welcoming refugees.
The Alliance of Jewish Progressives can be contacted at accohen@princeton.edu.
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