US and the Issue of Refugees

People suffering in foreign countries are working to obtain a refugee status. However, only one percent will be able to resettle. The question that will determine their success in obtaining aid or resettlement is: why are they fleeing these countries and what is the United States current doing to help the refugees of these nations? The definition of a refugee excludes many people that are in need of resettlement. Even with these exclusions there is a huge population that falls into the recognized definition. The United States can only do so much to help the mass number of refugees who are fleeing conflict from all over the world. The most effective way for a country with the influence of the United States of America to help refugees, would be to neutralize the conflict rather than providing temporary solutions.

Where are these people fleeing from? Based on statistics from UNHCR 68% of all refugees are from only 5 nations. These nations are as follows Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Somalia. The sheer fact that most refugees come from one these five countries poses the question of why they are fleeing? These refugees are fleeing from civil war; a battle between government and rebel forces causing many people to be harmed in the process. Unfortunately, this is a battle that usually is not resolved without third party mediation and once it is resolved, conditions from the conflict may prevent a safe return for refugees. One example of this occured in Syria due to the fact that there is no good side of this battle. Both opponents in this conflict are willing to sacrifice humanitarianism for personal gain. One end of the civil war is a government who is willing to use chemical warfare on its people regardless of their association with the rebels, while the other side, the rebels or ISIS are willing to chop heads off anyone who threatens their religious beliefs.

What is America doing to help these Refugees? Well with the new President the numbers for how many refugees went down sharply. This is partly due to the Trump travel ban. Numbers are at a staggering 15,000 refugees who will be resettled into the us. This was a great shift from the Obama administration. In 2017 Obama had promised 110,000 refugees to be resettled, but due to increased threats of terrorist attack Trump has put a ban up. The Trump ban is understandable, in putting the safety of the people in the US first. However, it is not fair to those who are trying to come to the US in hopes to get away from death and to start their lives over.

About 68.5 million people are forced to leave their homes due to war. 60 people are displaced from their homes every 2 mins . It is only fair to at least give them a chance of rebuilding up from what was lost in their countries of origin. The united States is doing little to bring in refugees, but they are the leading humanitarian aid. This means that they are sending money to the UN to help their endeavors in resolving the Syrian issue. Hopefully they are able to finally get this figured out soon so people can come back to their country of origin peacefully.

Here is what I think is a good idea on what the United States should do. Based on what I learned through various organizations the United States could do more, but the United States isn't the only one who needs to step up when it comes to refugees. Countries should focus more on resolving the source of the conflict, by going into these places of conflict and neutralize the disagreements between the two opponents. The main issue I see with the global refugee crisis is that there are too many refugees being displaced too quickly for us to find places for all of them. Unfortunately if we opened our borders refugees wouldn't be the only ones to flood in. immigrants are wishing for the same thing as refugees however refugees have a much more valid reason to be let into our state. I don't believe that the United States would be able to economically support a mass number of refugees entering the country without giving up budget already dedicated to helping refugees internationally.

If the United States can't take anymore refugees in because of threat why don't we establish more asylums? This would at least get the people out of the line of fire and set up. I say that instead of taking in refugees the United States would set them up in countries who are able take in these counties and move them into places that could spare them. Sure it would not be great conditions, but this would at least be good for them to find a place that isn't a threat. The United states would have to give more money to the UN in order to establish these asylums ( Which is stated in the US refugees Act of 1980). This way people could start rebuilding what was lost.

The only other thing the United States could do is open their borders up completely. This could however, cause a lot of issues in crime and possible economic instability but it could be worth a shot. Especially if we can get these people to do jobs perhaps not all americans want to do. The United States could bring more product into the world overall raising our GDP. if the United States opens their borders it could make other countries do the same. This would also help the refugee families, unfortunately some families get separated through this process. In doing this we could keep them together hopefully also keeping the mental health up, which theoretically would reduce suicide rates.

In conclusion, the United States could resort to many different ways of helping refugees, but the fact is that there will always be refugees suffering as long as there is conflict in their point of origin. By neutralizing conflict in the country suffering a refugee crisis while it is still in this stage if we don't stop it now it will only get worse, many countries will be relieved of the economic costs of supporting thousands of refugees. Budgets saved will then be able to be spent on preventing civil wars and stopping them sooner. This will not only improve the lives of refugees and allow them to return to their home sooner, but improve conflict resolution throughout the world.

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