The morality of allowing Syrian refugees into the USA

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JohnnyK said:
Exactly how I feel.🤷:confused:
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Lily_Bernans said:
Some people might say I’ve been going back and forth, and that’s true because I don’t know the best or most moral thing to do in this case. The post of mine you quoted is exactly how I feel. I just don’t know the best thing to do.
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I think that one if the big problems with an amateur discussion like this is that we do not have enough information. I tried to find out some of the criteria and requirements for those bringing refugees in and was unable to do so–could easily be my lack of ability, but the fact remains that I am only guessing based on inadequate information when I consider that route.

Another area I think we lack information about is the situation in Syria and that area. For example, it was only when these dscussions started that I found out about the extensive refugees camps in Turkey and Lebanon–between them they had over 75% of the 4M refugees (externally displaced people. Those fleeing violence who are still within the borders of their homeland are not considered refugees. Something else I learned.)

However, I also do not trust the “government experts” to be able to handle this very well, since the FBI has said they cannot adequately vet newcomers nor track those already here whom they have reason to track.
 
Peter_Plato said:
If you go to the terrorism.com database and search on the term “Islam” you get 83 pages of terrorist acts, the large majority being acts committed by – as opposed to suffered by – Muslim groups. If you search on the term “Christian,” you get 10 pages of acts for the most part suffered by Christian groups at the hands of others, mostly Muslim.

Here is the link…
terrorism.com/terrorism/index.html%3E
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Double-check your first list, as I’m not sure “as opposed to” is correct. The entire first page deals with attacks in Algeria, Pakistan, and Somalia. They could all be targeted at non-Muslims, but we’d have to look closer to establish that we aren’t dealing with Muslim perpetrators and Muslim victims. (And that’s the story given about these refugees – that they are mostly Muslims fleeing an extremist group willing to kill anyone outside its narrow range of belief.)

I won’t call you xenophobic for asking questions about Islam and terrorism, but make sure you are starting with the right questions. “Why does Islam promote terrorism” contains assumptions that are already biased against Islam as a religion. First let’s establish that more terrorism does arise from Muslim-majority regions, and if so, then let’s investigate whether that arises from the religion itself or some other factor.

Back when I was a kid and first heard about terrorism on the news, in the 70s, it was European extremists planting bombs and taking hostages in the name of Communism or anti-Communism or whatever. Islam came into the picture with the Iranian hostage crisis, but you still had Irish and Basque terrorists making headlines in the 80s. Killing people to cause fear and influence policy has never been an especially Muslim thing. It seems to be associated with people driven by a powerful ideology who believe themselves oppressed by a more powerful institution that they cannot fight by conventional means. Some strains of Islamic teaching can form such an ideology, sure, but that doesn’t mean every Muslim is a potential terrorist. Some people on these very boards have advocated violent resistance against abortion or even the installation of a Catholic monarchy. I’m also a Catholic, and I think those people are nuts. Further, I’m not seriously afraid that most of the people who talk about such ideas online are actually going to try to carry them out, which is where I would place the notion that some scary percentage of Muslims agrees in theory with suicide bombings in some situations.

Usagi
 
Christ has call us all to compassionate.
But I doubt if He has call us all to be stupid.
 
When God sent the Israelites into Jericho, he didn’t tell them to take the Canaanites in. He said to defeat them. He also told them not to associate with them or marry them because they would wind up adopting their evil ways. It is sad to say this, but little good has come to Europe as a consequence of opening their doors to Muslim immigrants. A high percentage of them have antipathy toward the West and Christians especially. Their values are hostile to fundamental civil rights, especially the civil rights of women. There are many good ways to help the Syrian refugees. Bringing them into the country is not one of them.
 
Cone said:
When God sent the Israelites into Jericho, he didn’t tell them to take the Canaanites in. He said to defeat them. He also told them not to associate with them or marry them because they would wind up adopting their evil ways.
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So, extrapolating this scenario to modern times, who are we supposed to exterminate here?
 
AFerri48 said:
I’m curious to what your opinions are on this as of right now. On one hand, we have reason to believe that any of these Syrians could cause a terrorist attack, while on the other… they are refugees.

How do you feel about this?
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The US is not doing it’'s own screening of refugees. They are being screened **and selected **by another agency. That agency has been accused several times of actively screening out Christian refugees (at worst) and giving preference to Muslim refugees (at best). If those reports are true, are we not cooperating with the evil of Christian persecution?
 
Corki said:
The US is not doing it’'s own screening of refugees. They are being screened **and selected **by another agency. That agency has been accused several times of actively screening out Christian refugees (at worst) and giving preference to Muslim refugees (at best). If those reports are true, are we not cooperating with the evil of Christian persecution?
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To what agency are you referring? As far as I am aware, recipient countries can and do screen the people they accept. What country would accept any other arrangement?
 
Cone said:
Really? Let’s not get hysterical.
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yes, let’s not.

That passage was invoked by a poster in relation to the issue at hand.
That is hysteria.

It’s like my dad used to tell me:
“Don’t lob a grenade at someone without expecting an appropriate response”
 
Usagi said:
Double-check your first list, as I’m not sure “as opposed to” is correct. The entire first page deals with attacks in Algeria, Pakistan, and Somalia. They could all be targeted at non-Muslims, but we’d have to look closer to establish that we aren’t dealing with Muslim perpetrators and Muslim victims. (And that’s the story given about these refugees – that they are mostly Muslims fleeing an extremist group willing to kill anyone outside its narrow range of belief.)
Usagi
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I never claimed they were necessarily NOT attacks on non-Muslims. The point was that when you look at the details they are predominantly attacks BY Muslims.

There was no way of filtering by search terms whether the attacks were perpetrated by Muslims or on Muslims, which is why I made my point. The large majority happen to be by Muslims when you search on the word “Islam."

When searching on the term “Christian,” the same problem of not being able to filter whether they were done by Christians or inflicted upon Christians. As it turns out, most appear to be inflicted upon Christians.

Read a few randomly.
 
Rau said:
To what agency are you referring? As far as I am aware, recipient countries can and do screen the people they accept. What country would accept any other arrangement?
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The United States?
Their plight involves a nightmarish catch-22. When Christians flee as refugees they cannot go to UN-run refugee camps because there they face the same persecution and terror from which they fled. If they are not in the refugee camps they are not included in the application process for asylum.
The U.S. State Department knows this, but continues to allow the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to select refugees for asylum with no regard to the endangered Christians and other religious minorities. According to statements in the Sunday Express from an ISIS defector and aid workers in the UN camps, ISIS is sending teams of trained assassins disguised as refugees to kidnap and kill Christians.
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And we’ve just learned that the State Department is poised to rule that Yazidis but not Christians are likely to be designated as victims of genocide in Iraq.
stream.org/us-christian-groups-prioritizing-muslim-over-christian/
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clem456 said:
yes, let’s not.

That passage was invoked by a poster in relation to the issue at hand.
That is hysteria.

It’s like my dad used to tell me:
“Don’t lob a grenade at someone without expecting an appropriate response”
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Referencing the Biblical story of Jericho is not lobbing a grenade. Accusing someone of advocating the extermination of an ethnic group is. Try to keep things in perspective.
 
Rau said:
No,** I presume** he refers to UNHCR. But I don’t believe that filtering prevents a recipient country carrying out checks on candidates as they see fit prior to acceptance.
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But does it mean the recipient country actually does?

As you say, “I presume…"
 
Peter_Plato said:
Also read this…

stream.org/not-one-muslim-refugee-need-shut-government/
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According to that article, Turkey is to manage all Syrian refugees (by virtue of its proximity) and no one else has any moral obligation to help.

It would be questionable, IMO, to have a policy of choosing Christian refugees over Moslem, even though that, as a practical outcome, may well be quite just. A policy that instead prefers those most in need would likely choose a large proportion of Christians. This flows from both the degree of persecution they have suffered, and the limited future opportunities anticipated for them in the region.

The article suggests, with no basis beyond the assertion of the authors, that the refugee “out flux” is in reality an ISIS plot to conquer the world by launching an undercover invasion. Apparently the conflict is not really producing refugees! This seems somewhat of an exaggeration.
 
Peter_Plato said:
But does it mean the recipient country actually does
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Hopefully Corki will tell us to what agency he refers.

I know the Australian government, one of the largest “customers” of the UNHCR, asserts that it selects refugees it takes, from the pool under the care of the UNHCR. I doubt the US government accepts a lesser right for itself.
 
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