The US Refuses Under Trump to Do Its Part to Ameliorate Worldwide Refugee Crisis
by John Lawrence, November 22, 2019
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of January 2019, there were 70.8 million refugees worldwide. Many are the result of US wars in the Middle East and of US policies around the world yet the US under Trump is reducing the number of refugees it admits to the US practically to zero. After framing refugees as a security threat, Trump slashed admission numbers for refugees to just 22,491 for fiscal year 2018. The number of Muslim refugees is down by 90 percent since fiscal year 2017, and Latin American refugee numbers are down by almost 40 percent, even though these asylum seekers are coming from regions that produce some of the highest numbers of refugees due to civil wars and violence. Just 62 Syrian refugees were resettled in the U.S. in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.
More than half the world's refugees are children. There are 6 million Syrian refugees alone total with half of them being children living in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and other places. Many of these children have never known any other life outside of refugee camps. This is what the Arab Spring touted by President Obama created. No matter how big a bastard Bashar al-Assad is, was this outcome worth it in a failed attempt to get rid of him? Obama supposedly set a "red line" which if Assad crossed it would result in massive retaliation by the US, but Assad crossed it without any retaliation. The larger question is red line or no red line, was whatever happened in Syria worth the creation of 6 million refugees? This was never considered.
Obama used the phrase "red line" in reference to the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, saying, "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation." The phrase became a source of contention when political opponent John McCain said the red line was "apparently written in disappearing ink," due to the perception the red line had been crossed with no action. On the one year anniversary of Obama's red line speech the Ghouta chemical attacks occurred. Obama then clarified "I didn't set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," a reference to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie noted that the agency’s appeal for Syrian refugee support continues to be underfunded.
“When UNHCR’s Syria response was only 50% funded last year, and this year it is only 17% funded, there are terrible human consequences. We should be under no illusions about this. When there is even not the bare minimum of aid, refugee families cannot receive adequate medical treatment,” Jolie said. “Women and girls are left vulnerable to sexual violence, many children cannot go to school, and we squander the opportunity of being able to invest in refugees so that they can acquire new skills and support their families.”
2/3 of all refugees come from just 5 countries.
— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) June 19, 2018
🇸🇾 Syria
🇦🇫 Afghanistan
🇸🇸 South Sudan
🇲🇲 Myanmar
🇸🇴 Somalia
Imagine what peace in just one of those countries could mean. https://t.co/2oJw96hAtM pic.twitter.com/ZI0ghcH9sM
It's understandable that the US doesn't want illegal immigrants in the country, but it should be helping out with the refugee crisis especially since it helped to create it by its Middle East regime change wars. Some of the refugee camps hold 100,000 people or more. They are like little cities. We are not investing in the next generation in those places so what do we expect when the children there grow up and become terrorists themselves. Right now they have no future, and that does not bode well for the situation on planet Earth for the next generation. As a host country, Jordan is estimated to spend $870 million a year supporting Syrian refugees; if treated as a traditional donor, it would have contributed 5,622% of its fair share. While the US has resettled refugees in the US, Trump is trying to whittle the number down to zero. As far as I could research it, the US pays nothing to support the refugee camps in Jordan and elsewhere. On a positive note, the International Rescue Committee and Sesame Workshop are teaming up on a major new effort to help young Syrian refugee children, including a new Sesame show in Arabic.
