I believe that all refugees coming from Syria – a war-torn country that ISIS calls home – regardless of religion require additional scrutiny before entering the United States.
Refugees don’t make our country less safe. But xenophobia, fear and hate do.
The E.U. should pay more attention to the plight of African nations hosting large numbers of refugees themselves – at times for decades.
Our country undergoes periodic episodes of extreme intolerance and fear of foreigners, refugees in particular. Not only were people of Japanese descent placed in internment camps during World War II, but so were some Italians and Germans.
Sending genuine refugees to face persecution in order to dissuade others from seeking to come here is plainly illegal.
My mum said: ‘Germany is our second home’ and it’s true. Germany gave us their open hands. I don’t know which country could have done that, at that time, to welcome refugees from Bosnia.
I believe we need to ensure there are no refugees placed in Arizona with connections to terrorist organizations.
If 30 Australians drowned in Sydney Harbour, it would be a national tragedy. But when 30 or more refugees drown off the Australian coast, it is a political question.
There are many Palestinians who believe there is no way to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. They call for the right of the return of refugees to Israel – something which is unacceptable for the consensus in Israel and which strikes at the very heart of this issue.
I am so impressed by UNHCR staff who live and work side by side with the refugees. It’s really remarkable.
Austerity and economic insecurity have collided with the scapegoating of migrants and refugees, at a time when global instability and warfare have driven millions to flee violence and persecution, a minority of whom have arrived on European shores to be met with hostility.
We have a very structured process for taking in refugees. It takes almost two years to transition from another country into the United States through the refugee process.
We understand what President Trump means when he talks about taking the country back. He does not see America as a country of people from diverse backgrounds united around values of freedom and respect. In his ‘American carnage’ version of our country, immigrants and refugees are a threat.
We can and must do our part to increase the number of Syrian refugees being resettled in the U.S.
My parents are refugees from Vietnam, so they didn’t grow up with ‘Star Wars.’ I don’t think they know what’s going on in the movie at any given time.
Like all Americans, Arkansans hurt for the Syrian refugees. The hardships they face are beyond most of our understanding, and my thoughts and prayers are with them, but I will not support a policy that poses real risk to Americans.
I’m the spokesperson for the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees. My father was from Syria. It’s an American initiative, and it’s multi-faith. So, it’s maybe 60-65 different organisations, Jews, Christians, Hindus… Anyway, it’s very important and serious.
Refugees come to us seeking asylum, seeking freedom, justice and dignity – seeking a chance just to breathe. And people in our country are saying close the doors and don’t let them in?
The United States has already experienced the danger of flawed refugee vetting as well as the potential for refugees to be radicalized once they are here. In 2011, two Iraqi refugees were arrested in Kentucky for conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals abroad in support of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to ISIL.
We cannot continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally. And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in refugees whose intentions cannot be determined.
I feel, in 2015, when we see human beings and children dying to cross the ocean, trying to find safety, something more must be done to help them because refugees are just like me and you.
Trump errs on the side of bluster sometimes for effect, but I don’t think that the people who voted for him, most of them, would ever be for not caring for immigrants or refugees. People in the church know it’s our obligation.
Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress have proven they will use bait-and-switch tactics to move more unvetted refugees into our communities. This will inevitably put our nation and our citizens at risk for future terrorist attacks.
Sharon Shinn’s Samaria is a world populated by refugees from a ravaged Earth, also many, many years in the future.
We sure didn’t feel like refugees, but in hindsight, I guess we were – my father and mother left everything behind to come here – to be safe and give their boys a chance to rebuild a life.
There are millions of people, refugees, who have experienced the same conflicts and struggles I did. They have the same potential to defy the odds and achieve great things.
Refugees come from many different backgrounds and live in many different circumstances, so I wouldn’t like to generalise. But I think refugees from the U.K. would probably be healthier and better fed than those from many other countries.
I wouldn’t know the political solution to ending the conflict in those countries that refugees escape from. The only thing I know for sure, however, is that we need to help these people.
My focus is matters of the heart and matters of the spirit, emotion and passion and stuff like that. But I think I’ve been getting better at being more specific about what it is I care about. Such as the welfare of refugees and solidarity between threatened populations.
Profiling, listening in on anyone and everybody who looks suspicious, or interviewing Muslims in a more intense way than interviewing Christian refugees is all acceptable.
I don’t believe that the fight for trans rights or African American rights is different from the fight against war, or the fight for refugees.
We are also assisting the refugees who have fled across the border to Chad. As many of them have been subject to attacks by militia crossing from Sudan, UNHCR is mounting a major logistical operation to establish camps and transfer refugees away from the border zone.
Our country’s history is a generation-spanning journey to effectuate the notion that ‘all men are created equal’ for the members of our ever-expanding national family: women, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, gays and lesbians, the disabled, immigrants, and refugees.
Refugees are the human dimensions of a failed state.
In just my own neighborhood, you can’t go one block without seeing a sign that says, you know, ‘Everyone’s welcome here,’ ‘Refugees are welcome here.’ I love my Muslim neighbors, and so there is truly this spirit of generosity and compassion and openness that still exists.
Forcing states to take refugees doesn’t take Europe any further.
The great irony was that, while I was being portrayed as a monster, I was in Khatmandu with my children, doing soup kitchens for Tibetan refugees, using all the money from my records to feed three hundred people a day, and working with monks connected to the Sammye Ling Buddhist centre in Scotland.
When we were in Egypt, we were refugees. My family and I were homeless. For five years, out of all of the countries in the world that my father was contacting, the only one that took us in was England.
On the screen I saw tanks rolling through dusty streets, and fallen buildings, and forests of unfamiliar trees into which East Pakistani refugees had fled, seeking safety over the Indian border.
When was the last time you heard news accounts of a boatload of American refugees arrive on the shores of another country?
Half of Syria’s refugees are children, and we know what can happen to children who grow to adulthood without hope or opportunity in refugee camps. The camps become fertile recruiting grounds for violent extremists.
YouTube has moved culture forward in attitudes – on refugees, on LGBT issues – especially trans issues. There was untapped demand there; a lot of our users would still be under-served without us. We’re a platform that enables everyone to have a voice.
As children my grandparents were refugees. Eventually they got to the U.S. – in 1950 or something. They grew up as refugees. Their earliest memories are of living in a home with their family. It’s in my blood, I guess, to have a fear about encouraging fascism.
When I was first lady, I worked to call attention to the plight of refugees fleeing Cambodia for Thailand, I visited Thailand and witnessed firsthand the trauma of parents and children separated by circumstance beyond their control.
America has a long and proud history of providing safe harbor for refugees. We must continue to do so, but in a way that keeps America safe.
We refugees, we become always a punchbag. A political punchbag between China and South Korea and North Korea.
Our country has been the leading provider of humanitarian aid for refugees.
We need to protect immigrants who come here seeking a better life, rather than turning our backs on refugees and closing our borders and our hearts to others.
As a post-Holocaust kid, growing up in a neighborhood with a lot of Jewish refugees, I had got the idea there were no Jews left in Europe. But I found in my European wanderings that many of them had gone back and rebuilt their lives.
I believe we should utilise any power we have for important issues that are bigger and beyond us. Whether it’s with refugees or working to educate kids. I don’t think you need to have gone through a civil war to do something. I believe as human beings, we can look out for each other.
