New York Times
By Patrick Healy
September 26, 2015
Pope
Francis challenged Americans last week to accept “the stranger in our
midst” and reject a “mind-set of hostility” toward newcomers. But his
invocation of the millions
of Syrian and other Middle East refugees, a relatively small number of
whom have been resettled in the United States, has been met with
indifference or resistance by many in the 2016 presidential field.
Some
leading Republicans, including Donald J. Trump and Ben Carson, said
after the pontiff’s remarks that they continued to oppose accepting
refugees in America, a stand
that pleases many conservative voters who are suspicious of Muslims.
Most of Mr. Trump and Mr. Carson’s rival candidates have mainly used the
Syrian crisis as the pretext for attacks over President Obama’s
strategy against the Islamic State, also known as
ISIS or ISIL.
Democratic
contenders have argued that the chaotic diaspora into Europe calls for
an American response — but have offered only modest proposals.
The
implicit question in Francis’ message — what kind of nation does
America want to be? — is clashing with the practical realities of
current domestic politics, as the
presidential candidates court an electorate that is exhausted by global
conflicts, divided on the issue of immigration, emotionally scarred by
acts of terrorism and far more concerned about wage stagnation. The
prospect of taking in 10,000 Syrians next year,
as the Obama administration recently proposed, may be the sort of
humanitarian goal that Francis was urging, but it does not reflect the
inward-looking mood of many Americans.
Republican
candidates have been striving for months to channel the grievances of
voters who feel angry or alienated, and as Mr. Trump’s rise in the polls
shows, he has
unquestionably done this best. At a recent rally in New Hampshire, he
allowed an audience member to excoriate Muslims and assert that Mr.
Obama was one, then switched his position on Syrian refugees from taking
some in (“You have to,” he said on Sept. 8) to
rejecting them all.
In an interview Friday, Mr. Trump held fast. “With all due respect, the pope didn’t change my mind,” he said.
“I
have a big heart, but we as a country need to say, ‘We have to get our
own act together,’ ” he added. “We cannot take the chance that thousands
of ISIS militants will
sneak in among the migrants. The last thing we need is a big surprise,
which we’ve had before. We can’t even create a website that works for
Obamacare. How are we supposed to screen undocumented Syrians?”
While
Hillary Rodham Clinton has accused Mr. Trump of preying on “paranoia
and prejudice” among voters, neither she nor other leading candidates
have proposed detailed
plans to deal with the humanitarian and security crises in Syria and
the region.
The
focus so far has been on numerical goals for Syrian resettlement in the
United States and the need for rigorous screening to block potential
terrorists.
Some
candidates have also framed the subject as a test of national character
— while opponents of accepting Syrians see it instead as a test of
national fortitude.
Mrs.
Clinton, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. Martin
O’Malley of Maryland each favor admitting 65,000 Syrians to the United
States next year — or more
in the case of Mr. O’Malley, who has been the most outspoken on Syria
as he tries to gain traction in the Democratic nomination fight. The
Democrats argue that America has a moral obligation to take in people in
need and help Europe manage the worst refugee
crisis since World War II.
Some
Republicans share that philosophy, including former Gov. Jeb Bush of
Florida and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. In an interview
after the pope’s address
to Congress on Thursday, Mr. Graham said he would support the Obama
administration’s plan to accept 10,000 next year with a sufficient
screening process.
If the United States fails to act, Mr. Graham said early this month, “we should take the Statue of Liberty and tear it down.”
Mr.
Bush has not said how many people he would accept, nor has Senator
Marco Rubio of Florida or Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, though they have
indicated they would take in
some. All four Republicans have pledged to do more to address a cause
of the crisis by defeating Islamic State militants.
Even
the 65,000 people whom Democrats want to resettle in the United States
would make little difference for the roughly four million Syrians
already displaced from their
country, refugee and human rights groups say.
“We’re
falling short of our values as a nation if our presidential candidates
can’t come forward with comprehensive plans for a tragedy that is
playing out daily,” said
Eva A. Millona, the executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant
and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “We’ve had so many phone calls from
people here in Newton, Lexington, Arlington who would lead by opening
their homes to Syrian families. This is a moment
of truth for candidates to show how they would lead as well.”
For
Mr. Trump and several other Republicans seeking support from hard-line
conservative voters, national security concerns take precedence in
weighing whether to admit
migrants and refugees.
Mr.
Trump has suggested creating “safe zones” in Syria that could be
protected with American air power, an idea that Mr. Graham also
supports. Three other Republican presidential
candidates — Mr. Carson, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former Gov. Mike
Huckabee of Arkansas — have endorsed humanitarian assistance, but have
focused more on warning that the United States lacks a vetting process
to weed out terrorists. (The current screening
process typically takes 18 to 24 months.)
“We
could be inviting some of the most violent and vicious people on Earth
to come right in here and live among our families,” Mr. Huckabee, a
Baptist preacher, said in
a radio interview after Francis said Thursday that “we must not be
taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons.”
The
pope’s admonitions collide with the fears of many Americans about
terrorism and the government’s ability to keep out dangerous foreigners
like the two Iraqi refugees
in Kentucky who pleaded guilty in 2012 to charges that they tried to
send weapons and money to Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq.
“I
think Ted Cruz has real intellectual integrity about keeping the
country safe and being very careful about letting in Syrians and other
people, and Trump is right to
focus on safety, too,” said Holly St. Peter of North Hampton, N.H., who
attended Mr. Trump’s recent rally.
Anxiety
over infiltration by terrorists crosses party lines. President Obama’s
director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper, said this month
that the possibility
that Islamic State operatives could sneak into the country among
refugees was “a huge concern of ours.”
Yet
the screening system for migrants and refugees is aggressive,
administration officials say, with only about 1,400 Syrians accepted
into the United States over the
last two years.
Mr.
Obama has proposed taking in 10,000 Syrian migrants in 2016 and,
separately, increasing the cap on the number of worldwide refugees
accepted each year by the United
States to 100,000, from 70,000. Refugees are people who are escaping
persecution and can offer proof, while migrants may be leaving home for
economic reasons.
Mr.
Graham, a hawk on many national security matters, said he believed
vetting systems were crucial but rarely perfect. “The risk of doing
nothing is greater than taking
vetted people,” he added, emphasizing the need to take pressure off
Jordan, Lebanon and other neighbors of Syria — as well as European
allies — by absorbing more of the displaced.
“A
year from now, if we don’t stop the complete unraveling of Syria, this
crisis will look so much worse,” he said. “What happens when the
neighboring countries begin
to collapse? What happens when other countries become overwhelmed with
Syrian refugees and their own people are at risk? There’s no good end to
this if we don’t act.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
No comments:
Post a Comment