Eid Mubarak

Sarah Elgohary                                                             sometimes I forget how blessed I am and remember Syrian refugees     Islamo?phobia and Syrian

Position platforms debate

Introduction

    The Syrian refugee crisis soon after the onset of the Syrian civil war, which began during Arab Spring in 2011. The conflict in Syria began with antigovernment protests that divided Syrian citizens into two groups, which then resulted in civil war. One group remained loyal to their President Bashar al-Assad. The other group opposed Assad’s regime and fought for democracy in Syria ( BBC News 2016). The conflict in Syria did not become a civil war until there were pro-democracy protests of people who wanted Assad to resign as President. Unfortunately, Assad did not resign.  In fact, his retaliation to the protests and use of government force led to hundreds of thousands of Syrian citizens protesting across the country, in order to fight back against the Assad supporters and to free their country. People who opposed Assad eventually began to take up arms, first in order to defend themselves and later to expel security forces from their local areas. At this point, the conflict became a civil war.  (BBC News 2016).

The Syrian Civil War has ultimately led to the development of a new global social phenomenon, the Syrian refugee crisis. Because of the Syrian Civil War, 4.5 million people have fled Syria, most of them women and children (BBC News 2016).  In addition, countries neighboring Syria such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. (BBC News 2016). About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, as a result, their are now political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden. (BBC News 2016). Furthermore, unfortunately, 6.5 million people are internally displaced from their homes inside Syria. 1.2 million were driven from their homes in 2015 alone.  (BBC News 2016). 

 The United States’ policy opposes the Assad regime and favors admitting Syrian refugees to the US. The United States has a very anti-Assad regime position on the crisis in Syria.  In fact, the United States thinks that president Assad is responsible for all of the war crimes and tragedy in Syria. The US wants to help Syrian refugees because they believe that Assad is a dictator and he has committed many war crimes that have led to the Syrian refugee crisis. In addition, the United States believes that Assad needs to resign and there needs to be a negotiated end to the conflict in Syria and a peaceful transition of government. 

Hillary Clinton supports the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States.  Despite the fact that there has been a recent spree of terror attacks, Hilary Clinton still wants to increase admissions of Syrian refugees without a screening plan. She has a policy to increase Syrian refugees by 500% into the United States (Leary 2016). Furthermore, not only does she support President Obama’s plan to admit ten thousand Syrian refugees in the United States, but she believes the United States should be doing more to help Syrian refugees. In fact, during an interview on CBS’ Face the Nation, Clinton was asked if President Barack Obama’s plan to increase the number allowed into the United States to 10,000 was enough. (The United States had accepted about 2,000 in 2015.) (Leary 2016) Hilary Clinton responded,

“Look, we’re facing the worst refugee crisis since the end of World War II, and I think the United States has to do more, and I would like to see us move from what is a good start with 10,000 to 65,000 and begin immediately to put into place the mechanisms for vetting the people that we would take in,” (Leary 2016) .

In other words, she wants to increase admission of Syrian refugees from ten thousand to sixty-five thousand refugees.   As a result, Hilary would have to change her admission policy on Syrian refugees from a five hundred percent increase of refugees to a five hundred and fifty percent increase of refugees.  

Another policy that Clinton has involves the resettlement of one million Muslims. Under Hillary Clinton’s stated proposals, Muslim immigration would grow substantially faster, adding nearly one million Muslim migrants to the U.S. during her first term alone (HARANRAN 2016). According to the department of homeland security, the U.S. permanently resettled roughly 149,000 migrants from predominantly Muslim countries on green cards in 2014. (HARANRAN 2016) Yet Clinton has said that, as President, she would expand Muslim migration by importing an additional 65,000 Syrian refugees into the United States during the course of a single fiscal year. Clinton has made no indication that she would limit her proposed Syrian refugee program to one year. Clinton’s Syrian refugees would come on top of the tens of thousands of refugees the U.S. already admits from Muslim countries (HARANRAN 2016) Although she wants to expand the Syrian refugee population to 65,000 refugees, she has made no plan of action as to how she is going to support the Syrian refugees’ life in the US.

     On the other hand, Donald Trump does not support Syrian refugees coming to the United States, and he wants to ban the entire Muslim race from entering the United States. The only thing that I found on Donald Trump’s website about the Syrian refugee crisis was a small paragraph called “Refugee Program for American children.” (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/immigration/?/positions/immigration-reform) The paragraph does not even mention anything specific about Syrian refugees or the civil war. Trump’s plan for Syrian refugees, if he even has a plan, is vague. However, he wants to increase admission requirements for any type of refugees and asylum-seekers coming to in the United States in general because he wants to crack down on abuses. https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/immigration/?/positions/immigration-reform).This is because he thinks that refugees are dangerous, and he over-generalizes that all Muslims are terrorists. This is why his refugee policy is very limited. In addition, his plan also entails that the United States should spend more money placing children in foster care in safer homes and communities. Donald Trump does not care about Syrian refugees to the point where rather than spending money on refugee programs he would rather spend the refugee program budget to help place American children without parents in safer homes to improve community safety in high-crime neighborhoods in the United States. As a result, he gives the impression that the suffering of? refugees from any country, Syria or otherwise, is inconsequential and not important enough to spend money on. This is an opposite position from Hilary Clinton who is an advocate for Syrian refugees.  

Ted Cruz was a popular candidate until he dropped out of the race. Ted Cruz’s position on the Syrian refugee crisis is very critical and direct for many reasons. First, he does not support admission of Syrian refugees into the United States. Furthermore, he has a very strong opposition to Obama’s Syrian refugee plan to let ten thousand refugees into the United States because he thinks that all Syrian refugees are radical extremists who are following an ideology that justifies murder.  He also wants to ban Syrian refugees from entering the United States, like Donald Trump. According to an interview on CBS, [citation] Ted Cruz believes that people should be screened based on their ideologies in order to prevent radical extremists from coming to the country. 

Gray Johnson is the Libertarian Party nominee.   He supports the admission of Syrian refugees to the United States.  In fact, he believes that it is the United States’ responsibility to take in Syrian refugees. Gayy Johnson explained? this claim during an interview with Reason in November 2015, when he said, “We need to take our share, and I'm not sure what that share should be. I'd like to come up with a formula based on our coalition partners. I wouldn't say zero, but I don't know if 65,000 puts us in the category of' doing our part:(Gary Johnson presidential campaign, 2016/Syrian refugees - Ballotpedia). This statement  shows that he, like Clinton, believes that the United States needs to do more to help Syrian refugees. In addition, he also wants to make a new Syrian refugee plan, but unlike Hilary, he does not think that increasing admission of Syrian refugees from ten thousand to sixty-five thousand refugees is doing our share to help refugees. In other words, he does not think that the United States is doing enough to help refugees, and we need to do more.

The Democratic platform is very different from Hillary Clinton’s policies in many ways. First, the democratic platform is fifty pages long, but there is only one paragraph about the Syrian refugee crisis in the entire platform. However, unfortunately, the paragraph on Syrian refugees is under the heading of a global threat not a humanitarian crisis. This is a very important finding for my research on how the media and politics in the most powerful nation in the world are negatively representing Syrian refugees. With that said, people cannot forget the fact that Hillary supports the admission of Syrian refugees in the United States and she is trying to create policies to help Syrian refugees, rather than seeing them as a global threat. Therefore, the democratic platform does not represent the true scope of the Syrian refugee crisis. In fact, the democratic platform contradicts what Hillary stands for.  The platform paragraph is just a very broad general overview of the Syrian refugee crisis with no detailed explanation of how the crisis started and no plan action by the Democratic Party to help refugees. The first two sentences of the paragraph are sending bad messages to the world. “The Syrian crisis is heartbreaking and dangerous, and its impact is threatening the region, Europe, and beyond.” The first sentences are obvious but at the same time the sentence minimizing the social problem of refugee displacement?. However in the second sentence there are two problem not only does the democratic party not provide a plan of action for refugees, but they point fingers at Donald Trump’s policy on banning Muslims by saying that he “would inflame the conflict by alienating our allies, inexplicably allowing ISIS to expand in Syria, and potentially starting a wider war.“ (The American Presidency Project Democratic platform, p.? 23).

I found nothing on Syrian refugees in the 66 pages of the Republican platforms and it was 66 pages. However, according to a Washington Post article on Syrian refugees, almost half of Republican voters favor deporting all immigrants here illegally and barring Syrian refugees from entering the United States (Tankersley, Clement 2015). Donald Trump thinks this fact alone helps to justify his racist actions towards Syrian refugees and Muslims. However, this is not the case, because Donald Trump is acting discriminatory towards Muslims by just conforming to the view of his own party. In reality, instead he should be trying to educate himself about Syrian refugees. In order to change his policies and change the Republican Party’s view Syrian refugees as criminals and terrorists. Donald Trump is racist towards Syrian refugees to the point where he even questions President Obama’s sanity when he said’ “Refugees from Syria are now pouring into our great country. Who knows who they are - some could be ISIS. Is our president insane?” (Schoeneman, 2016). This proves that the Republican Party does not care about Syrian refugees.

 The Syrian refugee crisis has become a worldwide social problem. The Syrian refugee crisis is the worst humanitarian crisis in history. As a result, no matter who becomes president the Syrian refugee is a huge social problem that is impossible for one person to solve on his or her own.  Even though both candidates both have strong opposing views on whether or not to admit Syrian refugees to the United States neither one of them has a real plan of action on what to do with Syrian refugees when they come to the United States. This is why we need to come together as a society in order to help and find multiple solutions to help solve the Syrian refugee crisis along with helping Syrian refugees who are already here settle to their new lives in the United States.  

Works cited

By entering your mobile number you are agreeing to receive periodic text messages from Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (n.d.). Immigration. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/immigration/?/positions/immigration-reform

"Gary Johnson Presidential Campaign, 2016/Syrian Refugees - Ballotpedia." Gary Johnson Presidential Campaign, 2016/Syrian Refugees - Ballotpedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

HARANRAN, @. J. (2016, July 15). Clinton to Resettle One Million Muslim Migrants During First Term. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/14/clinton-resettle-one-million-muslim-migrants-first-term-alone/

Leary, M. P. (2016, June 15). Politifact: Hillary Clinton for 500% Increase in Syrian Refugees. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/15/politifact-says-trump-right-criticism-hillary-clintons-support-500-percent-increase-syrian-refugees/

News, B. (2016, March 11). Syria: The story of the conflict. Retrieved September 26, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868

Tankersley, J., & Clement, S. (2015, November 24). It’s not just Donald Trump: Half of Republicans share his views on immigrants and refugees. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/24/its-not-just-donald-trump-half-of-republicans-shares-his-views-on-immigrants-and-refugees/

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Schoeneman, Brian  . (2016, November 02). Myths vs. Facts in the Syrian Refugee issue - Bearing Drift. Retrieved September 30, 2016, from https://bearingdrift.com/2015/11/18/myths-vs-facts-in-the-syrian-refugee-issue/

1. The American Presidency Project. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2016, from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/