Janice Kamenir-Reznik and Zev Yaroslavsky write in the Daily News about why the United States cannot shut it’s doors to Syrian refugees. The article is reproduced below:
Over the past week, America’s worst impulses have threatened to overtake its greatest values in the public debate about whether to allow Syrian refugees to enter the United States. In the wake of ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris, more than half of U.S. governors have pledged to close their borders to these refugees, even widows and orphans under 5. The House of Representatives passed legislation by wide margins that would immediately halt our existing refugee program in the region, and impose a range of roadblocks guaranteeing that no Syrians will find refuge on our shores anytime soon. ISIS and other terrorists, they argue, will take advantage of the refugee program to enter the U.S. and commit attacks.
The rhetoric of the moment reminds us of the 1930s and ’40s, as the Nazis systematically rounded up and murdered 6 million Jews and many others.
As the Nazi regime prepared to execute the Final Solution, America’s doors remained shut. At the time, members of Congress claimed that Jewish refugees posed an imminent economic and security threat, arguing that Nazis and communists would infiltrate their ranks. Driven by fear and prejudice, more than two-thirds of the American public agreed with this assessment, opposing the admission of any Jewish refugees.
Our organization, Jewish World Watch, was founded to turn the tragedy of the Holocaust into lessons for today, ensuring that people of conscience do not stand idly by in the face of genocide and mass atrocities. As part of the largest anti-genocide coalition in the country, we partner with refugees who fled brutal conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Cambodia and elsewhere — and found a home and a brighter future in America. We also work closely with survivors of conflicts in places like Rwanda, where the world looked the other way as their communities were targeted for extermination. In the stories of these people, you see up close the power of America’s promise to the persecuted — and, also, the great peril of its isolationist impulse.
Too often, our leaders have used security as a pretext to turn our backs on those communities facing imminent destruction. This is both immoral and illogical.
The U.S. government’s existing, multi-layered process for admitting Syrian refugees is more extensive than the screening of any other immigrant group. It takes up to two years and involves five government agencies, which use a range of classified and unclassified sources to examine the refugees’ backgrounds — the vast majority of whom are women, children and elderly.
When boiled down, the question hanging over the debate is: exactly what kind of nation do we want to be? Do we want to be a nation that seeks to shut itself off from the world, or one that leads with compassion, decency and dedication to the values that have made us great?
The violence afflicting the Syrian people — caught between a brutal Assad regime and the terror of ISIS and other rebel groups — has shocked and appalled the world. Lifeless bodies of Syrian babies have washed up on beaches, while millions of refugees remain stranded in train stations and detention camps throughout the Middle East and Europe. With more than 200,000 Syrians killed and millions fleeing the ever-widening crisis the international community, including the United States, has a humanitarian obligation to play a role in offering shelter.
At its best, our nation of immigrants has seen ourselves in the tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to be free who have come to our shores from all over the globe. By welcoming them into our midst, we have built the world’s most dynamic and diverse society — and its greatest beacon of hope.
Janice Kamenir-Reznik is co-founder and president of Jewish World Watch, an organization dedicated to the fight against genocide. Zev Yaroslavsky is a former member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and a board member of Jewish World Watch.