august: cleveland county

The German television station Das Erste's news program, tagesschau, has started a version of their 100 second news broadcast online with subtitles in Arabic and English for migrant and refugee viewers. Both are silent with subtitles, but it is a welcome gesture nonetheless. The broadcast will be updated twice a day on weekdays and once a day on weekends and holidays. The original German broadcast is one of my favorite news sources, so I'm glad that English and Arabic speakers can access it now!

Here's a link to the article (in German).

tagesschau in Arabic here.
tagesschau in English here.

Today, many leading officials from many states have come to the conclusion that it is too difficult to sort Syrians seeking asylum from terrorists in disguise. These people think that the United States is putting itself at risk by accepting refugees from Syria. Perhaps they are right; you can never say never about these sort of things.

However, these people, who include my governor and several of my facebook friends, seem to be overlooking three major points:

It is extremely difficult to enter the United States as an asylum-seeking refugee. The US State Department lists the average processing time for an asylum seeker as 18-24 months. The backlog is enormous. The U.S. Code specifically prohibits individuals with a history of persecuting other individuals from applying for asylum. (This probably wouldn't discourage a terrorist, but it is still important to note.) These individuals must also be interviewed by a busy case worker who may only have four hours to review the entire case, including the interview, which means that any inconsistencies often result in rejection.

In September, President Obama only promised to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees next year. That is not a significant population when one considers the population of the United States (322 million). This is also not very significant when one considers the number of American citizens who engage in activities such as school shootings that incite terror each year.

Finally, if you look at Germany, these worries begin to seem a bit silly. Only one terrorist attack has taken place this year in Germany, and this was carried out by a German who injured only one other person (a policewoman). This man claimed to be an Islamist although this was disputed. Before the massive influx of refugees began in Germany in 2015, there were already over 226,000 people seeking asylum and over 216,000 additional refugees in that country.* If the amount of terrorists hiding among the Syrian refugees is as high as some seem to believe, wouldn't there have been an attack in Germany by now?

If you look at all the research and come to the conclusion that refugees should not be allowed in the United States, that is your right, but please do your research before coming to a conclusion.
________________________
*Note: this source was last updated December 2014
Image source: Wikimedia, uploaded by Haeferl on February 16, 2013, used under creative commons.