The United States has been particularly hostile since President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting refugees and immigrants from mainly Islamic countries. On the list is Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The country that really sticks out from this list is Syria, a country currently going through an extremely destructive civil war that has destroyed many of their major cities and forced many of the country’s citizens into refugee camps.
Syria’s conflict is not a secret. It’s been televised and written about and photographed. But even though we can see their pain and struggles, we are not helping them. When talking about this issue many people bring up the Holocaust and the United States’ actions then. During World War II the United States refused Jewish refugees fleeing Europe. Infamously, the United States sent away a boat full of Jewish refugees in 1939, resulting in the boat returning to Europe where about half of the passengers are estimated to have been killed.
Courtesy: The Chicago Tribune
Now if that doesn’t scream awful, then I don’t know what else does. I remember when I was in middle school, visiting the recently opened Holocaust Museum on the National Mall in Washington D.C. I was struck by how awful it was. You don’t think about what really happened to the victims of the concentration camps until you see it in person and hear stories from their families.
One again our country is going back on their values. People are being turned away from freedom and safety. We can see what they are running from; war, destruction and turmoil. All they want is to be safe. This is not a political problem but a people problem. We need to love other people. We should love them and guide them to safety. No matter our racial, cultural and geographical differences we are all connected by human kind and it’s about time we started looking out for others.