In recent months, international news headlines have been dominated by images of desperate Middle-Eastern migrants seeking to enter the European Union illegally. Migrants, most commonly those who experienced revolutions and power shifts in the 2011–2013 Arab Spring uprisings, have been seeking sanctuary from war, starvation, and turmoil in their respective nations.
Inequalities and old ethnic animosities were suddenly exposed and the inexperienced new democratic politicians were no match for the violence that ensued in Libya, Yemen and Egypt. Instead of transitioning easily to democracy, the nations of Syria, Egypt, Libya and Yemen all became hotbeds for insurgency as the various minorities who had been persecuted under former military dictators all fought for absolute power in their respective nations.
Instead of pushing for states that represent equality and democracy, these new regimes have persecuted minorities and women to an even greater extent than the dictatorial regimes that predated them.
This has resulted in a massive migration of minorities and citizens fleeing the wars in their home nations. Currently, 4 million refugees, or about one-sixth of the total Syrian population, have fled from Syria alone to the neighboring nations of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt.
WIth these neighbors unable to provide sustainable funds and resources for the refugees, many have attempted to take the risky journey to Europe. European nations are finding themselves unable to accommodate any more refugees, and now, the world looks increasingly to the United States to solve the refugee crisis.
America has a long history of being a welcoming nation, and as the result of its refugee-friendly policies, the American culture and economy benefited greatly. Migration during the early 1900s brought hardworking migrants who provided the necessary labor to power the booming economy of industrial-revolution era America; migration during World War II brought some of America’s finest intellectuals, including many rocket scientists, physicists and engineers. The steady stream of Asian immigrants following the loosening regulations of the 1970s has powered America’s engineering sector as well as intellectual institutions. Essentially, every large migration to our nation has been a net benefit, whether or not we realized it at the time.
Similarly, I believe that if we allow a large number of migrants to resettle in America until conflicts in their home nations cease, then our economy and humanitarian standings in the world will increase drastically.
However, a large percentage of the American public is opposed to a mass migration of foreigners to the US. With anti-immigrant sentiment quite high, frequent terrorism scares, and millions of illegal immigrants residing in the USA, the government would have to make a more elaborate plan to support refugees. Firstly, supplying monetary aid to the governments of nations experiencing the full brunt of the migrations is an ideal way to gain significant humanitarian standing in the international community and fulfill our commitment to support the rights of those who had been denied, all without having to deal with the legal and social implications of actually accommodating refugees at home.
The second part of the solution would be to force the Arab states—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman—to accommodate at least some refugees. These nations are all currently refusing to allow any refugees within their borders. However, these nations all suffer acute labor shortages, and rely on migrants from South and Southeast Asia to fill agricultural and construction jobs. In addition, nations such as Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Brazil are slated to face increasing labor shortages, and allowing refugees to resettle could be an easy fix for this problem. To conclude this point, the U.S. must use its influence to convince our allies with labor shortages to accept migrants, and we must also prove to them the benefits of accepting refugee populations.
The last stage of a good plan to end the refugee crisis would be to accept a larger number of refugees. A large portion of the Islamic State’s power comes from a major flaw in the American invasion of Iraq: American leaders decided to completely remove the power of the nation’s former Baathist Armed Forces, resulting in large scale unemployment, discontent amongst those disbanded, and a lack of proper law enforcement in Iraq.
All of these factors play hugely into the recent insurgence of warring militias in Iraq, Syria, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Libya. The American public must acknowledge its folly in a similar manner to how it did in the Vietnam War, where more than a million Indochinese were resettled in America as an acknowledgement of poor military decisions during the war.
If America takes similar precautions as they did in resettling Vietnamese, a migration of refugees to America could be safe and beneficial. Firstly, allowing only families to relocate to America would drastically increase the feeling of security amongst sceptical American citizens and would also double to ensure that we help the most needy. Secondly, we must try to educate the migrants with useful vocational skills. Educating migrants in agricultural practices and other skills required in understaffed sectors of our economy could prove to balance the costs of helping migrants relocate here. Lastly, in sponsoring migrants to relocate to America, accepting the arguably most needy orphan populations in this crisis would be hugely beneficial in creating capable, forward-thinking minds to power the future equivalents of the nations and communities they left behind.
It must be recognized that it is not necessary for us to accept the same numbers as in the Vietnam refugee crisis, as many more nations are inclined to assist refugees in this migration. America must realize that in being the world’s superpower, many responsibilities exist, including helping the poor, starving and deprived migrants emerging from this crisis.
As CNN’s Kathleen Newland put it, “We would be a poorer country—in pocket and in spirit—if we had not taken [refugee populations of the past] in.” This should be the mindset of our nation as we face this major upcoming moral debate.