Calls to ban Syrian refugees play right into terrorists’ hands
As terrorists parading as “Muslims” were attacking innocent people in Paris, my Muslim mother-in-law was taking care of my babies while I was away, cooking them curry and tucking them into bed.
My Muslim father-in-law bought my oldest girl a scooter and helped the little one with her wooden train set.
These are among the Muslims whom I know and love. They pray five times a day. They made the pilgrimage to Mecca this year. They love their grandchildren and their redheaded, Christian daughter-in-law. And they are peaceful people.
Terrorism is all about dividing us. It is about making us scared and angry and vengeful.
But it is our choice whether to give in to those emotions.
Gov. Greg Abbott and other governors across the country seem to be making that choice with vows to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees.
Because some refugees are Muslim, and because some terrorists falsely claim to be Muslim, we would slam the door shut on an entire nationality desperately seeking to escape such terrorism?
It is OK to turn our backs on people like Mohamad Alakish, the clothes maker and father of three young children I wrote about in 2013, who fled to the United States after surviving war and brutal torture in his native Syria?
That is the message that Abbott and others are sending: Our generous, open and powerful nation has been scared to the point of abandoning deeply held principles, including constitutional protections against discrimination.
To fear is natural, and understandable, in light of the horrors in Paris.
I want to believe that Abbott’s declaration to President Barack Obama is born of something more substantive than political considerations. I want to believe it’s born of the heavy burden to keep Texans safe. But attempting to ban Syrian refugees from
Texas is as illegal as it is illogical.
Abbott, a former state Supreme Court justice and attorney general, knows the law.
Restricting state resettlement services to refugees who come from particular countries, or have particular religious beliefs, violates federal and Texas law. It also could be construed as interfering with federal executive power to regulate immigration.
In Texas, the state’s own constitution specifically provides for “equality under the law,” which cannot be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or “national origin.”
Confronting terrorism is necessary, but attempting to block Syrian refugees isn’t the way to do it, said Geoffrey Hoffman, director of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic.
He said it plays right into the hands of terrorists since it disadvantages the very people — Yazidis, ethnic minorities, families, women and children — running away from them.
“We cannot and should not retreat into xenophobia and desperate jingoism, at the expense of compassion, human rights, and our moral and legal obligations to help people in need,” Hoffman said.
But this is about more than constitutional provisions and moral obligations. It’s about preserving our sharpest tool against radicalism — public perception.
Every Syrian refugee placed in the United States has friends, family, a Facebook account. All of them will share their experiences and perceptions of America and Americans. Every positive brush with freedom, with opportunity, with generosity can go a long way in sowing positive relations and repairing negative ones.
That is the last thing terrorists want.
They hate not only our freedom. They hate our acceptance. And they don’t understand it. It doesn’t fit into their dire narrative of America. Alarmist rhetoric does. The process for a refugee to be settled in the United States takes an average of 18 to 24 months but can take as long as three years, the Chronicle’s Lomi Kriel reported this week. Syrian refugees must pass an extra level of screening, in addition to multiple in-person interviews, criminal background checks and fingerprint searches.
Half of Syrian refugees admitted into the United States are children, Kriel reported, citing federal officials. Only 2 percent are “single males of combat age,” a senior administration official said.
Yes, it only takes one.
And yes, there have been reports that one of the Paris terrorists may have come in as a fake refugee. But more terrorists than that have been born on U.S. soil. Still more have overstayed U.S. visas.
A risk analysis is helpful. Consider that more than 4 million refugees have fled Syria since the war began in 2011, according to the U.N. Just 2,200 Syrian refugees have been settled in the United States. The most for any one city, 90, came to Houston.
And for the potential actions of one, some want to ban them all. Where will that stop? With Syrians? Or just with Syrian Muslims, as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz suggested? Or until we ban all Muslims?
That is a rash reaction, one that bears no resemblance to the America I know.
In our attempt to protect the land of the free, we cannot stop being brave.
“A risk analysis is helpful. Consider that more than 4 million refugees have fled Syria since the war began in 2011, according to the U.N. Just 2,200 Syrian refugees have been settled in the United States. The most for any one city, 90, came to Houston.