RNA - UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi says President Donald Trump’s new Muslim ban executive order, which blocks all refugees from entering the United States for 120 days (or even forever), has compounded the anguish for those fleeing the terrorists' savage attacks in Syria. The UN estimates say as many as 900,000 people are along the Idlib border now, with 11 million Syrians displaced overall by the war, roughly half of them having fled abroad while they still could, and the rest displaced internally.
The UN says more and more refugees are now setting up camps along the new Turkish border wall. Hopes that the situation in the North would calm have been dashed too. Turkey has invaded North Syria, there is heavy fighting everywhere, even among the US-backed rebel factions in Idlib and elsewhere.
More so, no one is trickling back home, and more and more people are arriving at the camps, which are swelling into a large collection of refugees at the border, uncertain about their future. Worse yet, as the US-led war continues to drag on with no sign of ending soon, the United States government keeps telling these people that they can never set foot on the American shores. The same is true in Europe, where the same type of xenophobic policy towards Muslims is mutating, virus-like, into an ever more resilient strain.
In other words, Trump’s Muslim ban and refugee restrictions are unjustified, xenophobic, and blatantly discriminatory - legally, constitutionally, and morally. Thinly disguised as a national security measure, the ban reinstates many of the most repellent elements of the original. And there are signs that it will be permanent – just like America’s permanent War on Islam.
However, Trump’s attempts to disguise the xenophobic intent behind the refugee ban cannot fool the international civil society. His national security justifications are unconvincing: No Syrian refugee has ever attacked American citizens in the United States. The idea that Syrian refugees pose a greater risk of committing acts of terrorism than anyone else is full-on false. They are not trying to go to the United States to commit acts of terrorism. They are fleeing America’s proxy forces who commit acts of terrorism. Still, instead of allowing these people to join their families in the United States, the Trump White House is dimming the human rights beacon.
In the prevailing environment, it is up to people of all faiths and backgrounds to challenge everything that the war capital’s ban represents. They should express their opposition to this racist policy and hold a global day of action. Across the globe, people of good conscience should demand that war capital Washington end this ban and restore hope for millions of Syrian refugees who are seeking respite and sanctuary from the war America itself helped to ignite and spread.
A real commitment to saving lives and protecting Syrian refugees would not focus on preventing departures or banning Muslims fleeing conflict and persecution. It would start with restoring peace and security in the heartlands of the Muslim world. It would also begin with the United States and Europe agreeing to fulfill the pleas of the UN for a modest program to resettle the most vulnerable 3.8 million Syrian refugees already languishing in the region. Lastly, a shift in US foreign policy would include abandoning the illusion of regime change to maintain the status quo, so that the regional states wouldn't bear a disproportionate burden.
Long story short, Syrian refugees are not “gatecrashers, job seekers or terrorists,” as White Supremacist Trump would like to suggest. This is a dangerous course of action by the Trump White House and media, shortsighted, morally wrong, and in breach of international obligations. These vulnerable people have lost their homes and country because of what the United States and allies did and are still doing on the pretext of fighting terror and establishing democracy.
Instead of hiding behind a silly ban and dimming the beacon of hope for refugees, the United States and NATO countries should meaningfully address the root causes of forced displacement and migration in a host of sovereign states they themselves helped to destroy, mainly Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. Those who have launched 15 years of war on the Muslim world need to change course now. Else, the flood of refugees trying to escape the atrocities of terror proxies and regime change campaigns will continue to displace far greater populations in the coming months and years.
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