Fears versus Facts
and Fairness About
Muslim Refugees and
Immigrants
Despite real fears
and deep divisions among us, I believe fairly reviewing our history, and
faithfully respecting facts can help convince our country to move on from
Constitutional Court-imposed stays on banning Muslim refugees and immigrants to
permanently lifting the bans, rejecting new bans, and once again welcoming
well-vetted refugees.
Reviewing American history, we know as
a people that we often celebrate being a nation of immigrants, albeit too often
ignoring the horrific treatment of native peoples who first inhabited this
land, and at the same time, we have a long history of public majorities fearing
foreigners and opposing the admission of refugees. In the mid-18th
century, Benjamin Franklin feared and hated the wave of what he characterized
as “stupid, swarthy Germans” immigrating to Pennsylvania. Irish, Italian,
Greek, and Chinese immigrants to America all faced public fear, hatred and
discrimination in various forms. During World War II, popular fear fueled
public support for internment of Japanese Americans. While US government policy
toward refugees has varied over time and depended on the country from which
refugees came, majorities of Americans have opposed just about every wave of
refugees, including refugees from Germany in the 1930s, Hungarians in 1958,
Vietnamese after the war, and refugees from Central America, Mexico, Haiti and
Cuba..
Today, polls show
that a majority of Americans
oppose admitting Syrian refugees. This case is similar to public opposition to
admitting Vietnamese refugees. Just as the American war in Vietnam was
responsible for creating a context that generated a huge flow of Vietnamese refugees,
the disastrous US invasion and occupation of Iraq fueled the growth of Al Qaeda
and ISIS, and contributed to continuing conflicts that have generated the flood
of refugees from Iraq and Syria. The difference is that whereas Presidents
Carter, Reagan and Ford acted fairly and responsibly to support admitting
Vietnamese refugees, President Trump and key White House advisors loudly fuel
public fears of Muslims and advocate a blanket exclusion of Syrians, as well as
severe restrictions on Muslim refugees and immigrants from six other countries.
Significantly, Trump says nothing about Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt, three
countries in which he has business holdings and from which terrorists actually
have come to attack us.
An important lesson we need to learn from our history is that fear of foreigners, whether immigrants or refugees, is often fueled by falsehoods espoused by demagogues and then used by opportunistic politicians to gain power. Especially when so many news sources and social media tempt us to find “facts” that fit our own opinions, it’s essential, whatever our political views, that we all develop ways to do fact-checking, especially on controversial issues. See “The 10 Best Fact Checking Sites.” Specifically related to questions about Islam, I recommend Islam Fact Check.. Here are four facts from reliable sources about immigrants and refugees, and their relationship to terrorism.
An important lesson we need to learn from our history is that fear of foreigners, whether immigrants or refugees, is often fueled by falsehoods espoused by demagogues and then used by opportunistic politicians to gain power. Especially when so many news sources and social media tempt us to find “facts” that fit our own opinions, it’s essential, whatever our political views, that we all develop ways to do fact-checking, especially on controversial issues. See “The 10 Best Fact Checking Sites.” Specifically related to questions about Islam, I recommend Islam Fact Check.. Here are four facts from reliable sources about immigrants and refugees, and their relationship to terrorism.
- Since the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack, of more than 800,000 refugees the US has accepted and settled, exactly three resettled refugees have been arrested for planning some form of terror attack. (Migration Policy Institute).
- ZERO refugees from countries, including Syria, named in President Trump’s Executive Orders have killed anyone in terrorist attacks on US soil. (Cato Institute)
- In contrast with claims about little or no vetting during the Obama Administration, the process of background checks by the State Department, Intelligence agencies, Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI of immigrants and refugees from countries covered by the bans is already quite severe, multifaceted and lengthy, often taking eighteen months to two years. (Migration Policy Institute)
- Terrorism is real, but chances of an American being killed in a terrorist attack by a foreigner in the US stands at about one in 3.6 million. (Cato Institute)
Taken together with the scale of the
humanitarian crises in the seven affected countries and the examples of Canada
and our European allies which already are accepting large numbers of refugees
from these countries, these facts should convince us that there is no moral or
national security justification for President Trump’s policy of exclusion. The
concern, raised by senior Republicans and several military leaders that the clear
anti-Muslim motivation of Trump’s policy may actually raise rather than reduce
the threat of terrorist attacks adds another compelling reason for people to
demand that the bans be permanently lifted.
In a larger frame, what is at stake is the choice between the realistic policies of Presidents Bush and Obama that made a fair, fact-based distinction between Islam as a great, respected religion and a very small minority who use religion to justify their extremist ideology versus the extreme views of White House advisors Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (forced to resign over lying about his contacts with Russia). All three men have espoused white nationalist and anti-Jewish views. All three falsely and dangerously claim that Islam is a political ideology not a religion, and that the “Judeo-Christian West” is at war with Islam. All three support creating a clearly unconstitutional national registry for Muslim Americans. If President Trump pursues this path, as his promoting the bans implied, he will fuel fear and hatred of the United States and very likely generate security threats to our country that all Americans will regret.
In a larger frame, what is at stake is the choice between the realistic policies of Presidents Bush and Obama that made a fair, fact-based distinction between Islam as a great, respected religion and a very small minority who use religion to justify their extremist ideology versus the extreme views of White House advisors Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (forced to resign over lying about his contacts with Russia). All three men have espoused white nationalist and anti-Jewish views. All three falsely and dangerously claim that Islam is a political ideology not a religion, and that the “Judeo-Christian West” is at war with Islam. All three support creating a clearly unconstitutional national registry for Muslim Americans. If President Trump pursues this path, as his promoting the bans implied, he will fuel fear and hatred of the United States and very likely generate security threats to our country that all Americans will regret.
