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The News Service | |||
Op-Ed | ||||
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Lavinia Limon
America must not close the door to refugees
Immigrants and refugees and their advocates are as shaken by terrorism as the rest of us and want to ensure that terrorists are not given a free pass to enter America. We must enforce and strengthen existing laws and institute new procedures aimed at terrorists and criminals. But we must not let refugees become collateral damage in the process.
Nearly all refugees remember midnight raids or other abuses. They’ve been arbitrarily arrested, interrogated, imprisoned, raped or shot, or seen loved ones abused or killed, for belonging to the wrong religious, political or ethnic group or for associating with the wrong people. They’ve endured indefinite imprisonment without legal rights, under lawless regimes. In October 2001 the United States halted all refugee admissions for several months in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This made little sense from a security perspective: None of the hijackers had been admitted as refugees. Moreover, refugees are a minuscule fraction of all newcomers and undergo far greater scrutiny than others, including at least two face-to-face refugee-determination interviews, several security checks and sponsorship. The government knows where each is to reside, and they are met at the airport by voluntary agencies that are intimately involved with their lives for months. Eventually, 27,000 and 28,000 refugees, respectively, were admitted in fiscal 2002 and fiscal 2003 – down from nearly 70,000 in fiscal 2001. These were the lowest refugee-admission figures in 30 years, which meant that thousands of refugees were stranded overseas who had already been approved to come to the United States, having demonstrated a well-founded fear of persecution and been selected as of interest to the United States. Many had been waiting for admission since before 9/11. The Bush administration gave various excuses, including lack of resources, for leaving them stranded overseas, but they remained stranded, and some died waiting to come here to join their families in safety. This is inconsistent with our tradition of granting protection to persons who have been persecuted. We seem to have forgotten that refugees are fleeing terror. They are not terrorists. Irrationally targeting refugees in misguided attempts to improve our security neglects that they are not "evil doers" but, rather, have had evil done to them, and that they share our values of freedom, justice and equality. They have already voted with their feet and risked their lives to flee fear and injustice. When they reach our shores, they breathe a sigh of relief, appreciating freedoms previously known only by their absence. They have decided to join our diverse, pluralistic society, to pursue their own version of the American Dream. They have exchanged the known for the unknown and taken a great leap of faith by fleeing their homeland and leaving their families, culture and everything dear to them, for the promise of liberty. America has been a beacon of freedom and hope for refugees since its inception. To deny safe haven to refugees would mean turning our back on our heritage. Immigrants and refugees and their advocates are as shaken by terrorism as the rest of us and want to ensure that terrorists are not given a free pass to enter America. We must enforce and strengthen existing laws and institute new procedures aimed at terrorists and criminals. But we must not let refugees become collateral damage in the process. At stake are our values as a nation. We are at a crucial moment in our history and we are being tested. We seek security but must not give up our freedoms or take them away from others. Freedom is dangerous only to dictators and to those who would deny it to others – to zealots who want to establish societies in which everyone must live by rigid rules established by a few. Do we decide, under attack, that freedom is dangerous to us? Do we agree with the dictators and zealots that freedom is a threat to our way of life? Do we fight for freedom with one hand while denying it with the other? In the face of insecurity, we can cower or fight. America has always chosen to fight. We fight not only with military might but also with the power of our principles. Our most potent weapon is the idea of freedom. Terrorists and extremists hate it; we must steadfastly maintain it for ourselves and offer it to others. When our Founding Fathers declared that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” they made a revolutionary statement. It was an audacious and unreasonable assertion for its time and remains breathtaking in its truthfulness. It resonates in the heart of every human and is an idea that, once uttered, will not die or be diminished. America’s duty is to shine the beacon of freedom throughout the world and to practice our principles by offering sanctuary and hope to those denied basic human rights. We don’t need to fear refugees; having already paid the price for freedom, they personify the American spirit. Refugees founded this remarkable country, and they will continue to give our country back to us – ever stronger and more resolute. It is important to be reminded that this part of our heritage must remain alive and unchanged. News Service Home | Top of File | e-Subscribe | Op-Ed Service | Brown Home Page | ||||
Homeland security is something refugees have never known.
Refugees have been brutalized, ejected from their homes, marginalized,
discriminated against and suspected.