Imagine that one day you woke up the sound of a bomb. You have no idea how close this explosion was to you or your home. You hear people running frantically on the streets outside your window, so you grab your two children and quickly fill a bag with all the necessities that you can fit in it. Your children cling to you with tears in their eyes as you quickly try to find a safe place to flee to. Someone you don’t know grabs you and your children, and throws you into an unstable looking lifeboat. The lifeboat starts to move. You are delirious. You have been on the small, overcrowded boat for days now. People are telling you to prepare to walk for a very long time. So you do. You finally reach somewhere that you think is the United States of America. You put on your best face but you are denied access across the border. You are completely out of food, water, and energy. You now have nowhere to go with your children.
“Here we are, sitting in our recliners in our heated homes talking about how the US lets in too many refugees, while so many refugees are wondering which country they will call their new home.”
According to CNN Politics, the United States has admitted fewer refugees in 2018 than it has in 40 years. This needs to change. Every year millions of refugees struggle to find safe homes. Currently in America, President Trump and his staff have put a 50,000 person limit on refugees accepted into our country, according to The New York Times. The UN Refugee Agency says that there are currently 68.5 million refugees displaced. These numbers will never balance each other out. As border control has been a huge issue in America the past few years, our current refugee policies are not where they should be. A good example of a country that leads in this is Canada.
“The United States has admitted fewer refugees in 2018 than it has in 40 years.”
According to Nicholas Kristof’s article “Thank God For Canada,” from the New York Times, Canada stepped up to save refugees when no other country would. During the Syrian refugee crisis, Canada let in 40,000 refugees while the US only let in 12,000. For a country that is so quiet, Canada sure is setting a loud example for the world.
Many Americans believe that all refugees are terrorists trying to harm our country, when in fact, no refugee has ever committed an act of terrorism in the US since the Refugee Act of 1980. Yet, here we are, sitting in our recliners in our heated homes talking about how the US lets in too many refugees, while so many refugees are wondering which country they will call their new home. It is embarrassing that our country has not done better.
