Unfurling the Flag and the Welcome Mat

On this blog, I’ve avoided commentary on controversial topics or on anything that touches on policy. But with all the uninformed chatter about Syrian refugees floating around the interwebs in the wake of the Paris bombings, I feel compelled to share my perspective on the matter.

I understand the worry and fear many people have. Although we are very good at tracking and/or stopping people who wish to do us harm from entering the U.S., we can’t catch 100% of the bad guys and, as we’ve seen, it only takes a few bad guys to do some very bad things. It is natural to react to the tragedy in France with fear. But I would argue that it is not the American way to let fear turn into paranoia.

Unlike Europe, where tens of thousands of refugees are pouring into the continent with virtually no screening, the U.S. has the luxury of only accepting refugees after a lengthy and thorough vetting process. It can take 1-2 years (or longer) for a Syrian refugee to actually arrive in America. Is there a statistical possibility that a wanna-be terrorist could make his way to a refugee camp, get on the long waiting list, make it through the vetting process, and finally get to America many months, or even years, later? Yes. But the chances of him wanting to go that route to get to America are very slim.

Shutting down the Syrian refugee resettlement program won’t really make America safer. In fact, not tending to the refugee crisis could make things worse, as my former boss Ambassador Ryan Crocker wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Left unaddressed, the strain (of the humanitarian crisis) will feed instability and trigger more violence across the region, which will have consequences for U.S. national security.

We can protect our country and security without becoming the ugly, hateful country ISIS portrays us to be. We are better than that.