Everyday, thousands of innocents are forced to flee their home country trying to seek refuge from harsh circumstances such as wars, poverty, famish and political corruption.
Yet, everyday, countries including the U.S. are making their borders increasingly harder to cross. We need to treat these refugees as people first, instead of making them into a political project.
For many years, immigration and migration have been hot-topics on the political agenda for several countries. According to the U.N. Refugee Center (UNHCR), 68.5 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide. The UNHCR continues showing that more than half of these displaced people are children.
As a result to so many people fleeing, many countries began closing their borders, refusing more refugees. Some of these new policies include the U.K. putting a halt to their program which helps resettle displaced children, Germany sending refugees to Greece and Italy detaining and deporting fleeing migrants. Many more countries have followed similar protocols, all according to CNN.
Similarly, the U.S. is also creating stricter laws against immigration from several targeted countries as well as the separation of children from their parents for families crossing the border. This policy has left 500 children still detained and 1,488 unaccounted for, according to The Washington Post and The Guardian.
It’s easy to say “no” when it’s not you. In America, we are not faced with a war in our backyard. There are no bombs going off a mile away and we are not on the brink of starving to death in most places due to our currency being worth next to nothing.
Yes, we have our problems; however, they are not so extreme that we are fleeing to other countries terrified for our lives in mass numbers. But just for a second, imagine we were.
Imagine not knowing if you, your siblings, or even a child you know would make it to adulthood. Imagine looking at the people you love and watching them physically starve to death, or looking into their eyes and seeing genuine terror for the world outside their door.
According to World Vision, 6.3 million refugees come from Syria alone, trying to escape the war zone that has taken precedence there. Many of them fled to the neighboring country Turkey, who according to the UNHCR, is hosting 3.5 million refugees, more than any other country.
While Turkey originally welcomed Syrian war refugees, they are now beginning to encourage Syrians to go back, according to the Washington Post. They can no longer keep up with the needs and demands of the refugees, and with so many other countries closing their borders, the country is being stretched thin and does not know where to point them other than the direction they came seeking protection from.
Prime Minister Theresa May of the U.K. and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada have both also tried to have an open-door policy for those seeking asylum. They created the policies with the intention to save first, then work out the details.
They first saw them as people in need of help, and decided they would iron out the political kinks after.
These men, women and children are people, not just another legislative problem that needs to be dealt with.
