We are currently living in the time of the greatest displacement and refugee crisis that the modern world has ever experienced (Connor 2018). Since 2011 there has been more than five million women, children, and elderly citizens fleeing the country they have lived in their entire lives. Those without the opportunity to escape civil war have been displaced amongst their country in numbers of more than six million. In 2018, the United States (US) has chosen to allow a mere 11 Syrian refugees to resettle in our country (World Vision Staff 2018). Our actions does not adequately reflect what Syria needs from a global power like the US with great capabilities to aid.
The war in Syria began seven years ago with peaceful protests from citizens that lead to military responses that escalated the conflict out of control. Syria has since then asked the international community for external pressure from major powers that could bring about tangible change. Many countries have opened their borders to become a new home to millions of refugees and even more countries have offered tremendous financial support that would bring humanitarian aid. I will be arguing against the United States as to why they are not providing enough assistance to Syria in form of humanitarian and financial aid and why they should begin allowing Syrian refugees to immigrate into the country.
In the international world it has been becoming increasingly common for North American and European major powers to rely on a protectionist policy that is composed of waiting for other countries to take lead and provide aid during humanitarian crises. When left to themselves, most nations are unable to find common ground that both addresses the problem they are trying to solve and creating a solution that can be lead by example. This global refugee crisis has transformed from a crisis of numbers into a crisis of politics (Betts & Collier 2017). As refugees face heavy criticism during immigration to wealthier countries who can provide them with opportunities for better quality of life, much of the world does not understand why a refugee makes these decisions.
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Perhaps the most powerful misconception regarding refugees is that people assume they want to leave their countries for greater ones. This assumption is incorrect because refugees no longer even having a choice in the matter of where they can safely exist; they are only searching for a new home as their last option. These refugees are fleeing from countries that are not safe towards countries that do not want them, and are pleading for help from an international system that will not listen to them. However, countries like the US have an obligation to natural human rights to intervene as this crisis evolves and calls for help. The US has already established precedence in assisting displaced persons in 1946 with the International Refugee Organization, an extension of United Nations (USHMM 2018). A large majority of the costs of resettling displaced persons was given to Japan and Germany due to their actions; the IRO’s constitution was ratified and signed by fifty-five nations.
From this international organization created to assist refugees in finding new homes, the Displaced Persons Act was created. Public opinion of refugees at the time was low, so Congress kept their hearings private while they worked on the bill. Two years later Congress had amended the act and President Truman was able to sign off on his proposed legislation. This act was extremely significant because it issued 400,744 visas to displaced persons and the chronological and geographical limits had been removed, which had been a barrier for Jewish displaced persons who wanted to immigrate. In the following two years an estimated 80,000 Jewish immigrants came to the US because of this act. The United Nations deemed displaced Jewish persons a global crisis and the US could provide funding and offer visas—what is so different now? We can intervene while the conflict in Syria is still occurring instead of waiting years after World War II ended to offer aid.
The US has already shown the world that they have capabilities to accept refugees; there is no excuse to refuse them now. The concept of humanitarian intervention has been deemed by scholars as the international use of military force to defend persons from attacks, in their own territory, by their own rulers or other groups (Tesón & Van der Vossen 2017). A key concept of offering aid revolves around the intervention directly defending these persecuted groups and that the process is an efficient unilateral aid in correct proportion to the acts committed against these people. External tangible pressure and mediation–whilst providing short-term relief–has raised the question of where does state sovereignty begin and humans rights violations end.
When a country decides to invade another country on the basis that the latter is committing crimes against its own citizens, they do so without consent. The lack of consent of the invaded country is a critical element that qualifies as humanitarian rationale (Tesón & Van der Vossen 2017). Humanitarian rationale indicates that the negative effects that occur during the intervention, such as civilian casualties, are justifiable towards the end because the outcome is so much better than the alternative. The circumstances of intervention that would require other nations to interfere in internal conflict and whether the conflict can be eliminated with a reduced level of violence and minimal effort. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) arguably has the greatest level of power in regards to Syrian aid.
The UNSC is one of six institutions created under the United Nations with the sole intent of preserving international peace and security. This council holds the power to classify conflicts that need global intervention, determine actions as peaceful or aggressive, and taking lead on creating strategies that would further contribute to global peace. Due to US involvement in creating the UN they have become one of five nations that have the reserved power of veto. This power designates an instant veto of any debated policy being voted on at that time; consequently diminishing the amount of resolutions passed by the council. In the past year following chemical warfare attacks on citizens in Syria, the council has proposed varying policies that would lead investigations into the attacks to determine the perpetrators. All of these investigative mechanisms have been vetoed by a permanent member of the UNSC, thus ending discussion on the proposed policy.
The frequent vetoes against humanitarian aid policies from permanent UNSC members have rendered the mission of the UN as insufficient and inhibiting assistance to the global crisis. The US needs to realize the insufficiency of the UNSC’s attempts to give aid and find a way to hold the perpetrators of the chemical attacks responsible for their actions. Great global powers habitually designate national sovereignty as a defense for their lack of involvement in other nation’s internal conflicts. They believe that a country should be left to themselves, it is not their place to meddle in internal affairs, and such matters relating to displacement of such people should be left to the countries they are immigrating to.
The US, whose foreign policy could resemble isolationist or protectionist, have claimed this defense frequently in recent years. Critics of the US providing aid to Syria often claim that what we do would not do much at all. Opposing arguments such as this commonly revolve around the thought, “will this have any effect?”. They firmly believe that their actions—meaning the US a whole—would not cause any tangible change. “Barring military and other pressures that majority of Americans likely wouldn’t endorse, the U.S. will be a marginal player,” (Chicago Tribune 2018). This argument is wrong because they did not consider the political power and influence of the U.S. and they were only focused on the geopolitics of Syria.
The real power of the U.S. is based on the regional hegemony status that can assert internal, external, financial, and militaristic threats against other countries. As a great global power, the U.S. has never been a country to believe that they would be unable to cause change or what they would assert would not last. An argument for the U.S. to remain a neutral power in Syria’s civil war would be unlike previous actions and would not be an accurate representation of the U.S.’ assertion of power. The significant number of Syrian people being displaced throughout the world has reached an all time high. The humanitarian aid being given to these people, however, has not equated that value. Funding from wealthy nations can provide long-term restructuring of Syria’s economy, government, and rebuilding of infrastructure.
Where a large portion of funding needs to be allocated to is the less discussed immediate relief and aid; more specifically, there should be greater financial support to an already vulnerable group of people: women and children. It is easy for people to forget that even in the midst of a civil war, children are being born, families are struggling to find education, and that women remain one of the most vulnerable classes. These struggling groups will greatly benefit from long-term funding, but they need immediate relief most importantly. Of the six million internally displaced persons (IDP) in Syria, the United Nations Population Fund reported no care for about 360,000 antenatal or postnatal women (2015 UNFPA) and 48% of the refugees are under 18 years old (2017 UNHCR).
Risks stemming from no accessibility to basic healthcare are numerous: malnutrition, starvation, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), abuse, gender-based sexual assault, and copious other issues (Aburas, Najeeb, Baageel & Mackey 2018). In early 2017, President Trump pulled US funding for United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA). The US had previously provided 80% of the original start-up funding for the clinic until it was cut just last year, and the program did not remain afloat for the rest of 2017. The Women and Girl’s Comprehension Center, located in Zaatari, Jordan, was able to give maternity care, domestic violence response, arranged marriage counseling, and consistent access to sexual reproduction contraceptives (Ibrahim 2017).
Following the pulled funding from the US, this clinic was unable to perform its job at the performance level the vulnerable populations required. For example, follow up visits become more unlikely if a patient was to miss an appointment. The main focus of the clinic revolved around neonatal maternal care, so a lack of appointments can mean a rise in death rates for pregnant women in Syria who will have lost access to healthcare near them. In the midst of the displaced Syrian woman, the UNFPA reported that almost 360,000 were pregnant but had no antenatal or postnatal care; of this sample 70,000 did not have access to safe birthing conditions (Aburas, Najeeb, Baageel & Mackey 2018).
Unsafe birthing conditions are usually due to not wanting to go to the hospital for fear of running into rebels or being attacked. The US should not have discontinued its funding for the clinic because all of these deaths that follow the funding pull are completely preventable. The US should claim responsibility for the deaths that resulted from their apathy towards healthcare in a broken state. Under the Obama administration (2008-2016) about 33,000 Syrian refugees were allowed to immigrate to the US and roughly 12,000 refugees applied for political asylum under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) (Connor 2018).
TPS is an immigration status designated for refugees from a foreign country that is unsafe for them or they cannot return to. If found eligible for TPS the individual will not be subjected to deportation out of the US, are able to obtain an employment authorization document, and might be allowed to travel. Persons who already obtained TPS have a designation date of September 20, 2019, and those with an employment authorization document have an extension through March 26, 2019 (Homeland Security). This status is different from just immigrating to the country because TPS is only valid for a certain amount of time and does guarantee permanent citizenship. The US Department of Homeland Security has extended TPS three times over the course of the past six years.
Syria has held TPS country status previously to President Trump’s “travel ban” in 2017, and the extension granted these immigrants more time in the US. The Refugee Act of 1980 was established to dictate a formal system of refugee applications from those fleeing persecution of their home countries. The process of applying for asylum is an incredibly lengthy, expensive, and thorough process that does not even guarantee your application acceptance. Applicants must prove the persecution, violence, assault, or even awaiting death that would face them if they were to return back to their home country. Despite these formidable reasons to grant asylum, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has only approved an estimated 8,726 cases (American Immigration Council).
The difference of accepted asylum cases versus the amount of displaced people in the world is not nearly proportional enough to what it should be. It has become increasingly common for immigrants to be perceived in a negative light. Generally more politically conservative thinkers have arguments about how groups of people will come in and take jobs or somehow assimilate the culture of America, which is ironic because America was in every respect built on immigrants. While it is true that immigrants are much more likely than an average American citizen to rely on social welfare aspects of society, they are in a position to revitalize and boost the welfare system overall. Assisting families who have immigrated from Syria can bring a new wave of members of society once they have successfully integrated into society.
To be considered a valuable member to society, it is the general consensus that you are employed, pay taxes, and are educated enough to the liking of any individual. Native American workers and refugees have statistically shown to pursue jobs of differing skill sets and most likely do not compete for employment against each other (Bahar 2018). The lack of competition is most likely due to the specialization of job fields that one group is more qualified for. While only counting for 15% of the population, migrants constitute for 25% of the entrepreneurs in the country.
Entrepreneurship assists in the creation of small business jobs, which generates about 1.5 million employment opportunities annually (Bahar 2018). Syrian immigrants have been found by the Center for American Progress to hold higher degrees than native American citizens do, as well as being four times more likely to begin their own business. The more immigrants that are allowed to find a safe haven in the US, the more diversified our population and consequently business networks can begin. These international business connections between countries can bring multifarious networks together through varying global financial institutions.
Syrian refugees remain one of the largest displaced external and internal groups of people in our modern times. Strong global powers such as the US, Russia, and the UK have funded humanitarian aid in order to de-escalate conflict and provide help to conflict-struck zones. Women and children remain the most vulnerable groups of people in Syria; they face hate crimes, no healthcare, and no education. The US needs to re-establish their funding so that healthcare clinics that can provide immediate care, food can be delivered to conflict zones that innocent civilians are in, and so that supplies may be sent in for care. However, the US also has the capacity to allow Syrian refugees to immigrate from their war-zone homes to this country.
Under the most recent two presidential administrations of Obama and Trump, the US has assisted Syria with great amounts of aid but nowhere near as much as we have the capacity to. The US has the ability to assist Syria in elevated ways than basic food and shelter funding, such as programs that could safety transport vulnerable groups of people to safer homes, fund prenatal clinics, and assisting educators in making school more accessible to the lost generation of children who do not have a set learning environment. These actions taken by the US would establish an important precedent in how humanitarian crises should be treated by the world and lead by example in the international community.
