Why The Syrian Refugee Crisis

The refugee crisis has become an increasing issue throughout the world with the most predominant migrants being Syrians. In religion class, my teacher presented a video to the class called “Most Shocking Second a Day”. The video depicted the life of a young girl experiencing the Syrian civil war. First, the video started off calmly with the little girl enjoying her life by playing soccer and spending time with her family. However, as the video progresses, the girl’s entire mood and facial expressions change as she hears explosions accompanied by sounds of people screaming. Lastly, during her journey to find a safer place, she is separated from her family. Her once happy persona was replaced with one of fear and sadness. Upon watching this video, I felt a personal connection to the story. My mother also sought refuge from her home country of El Salvador in the 1980s due to a civil war. Witnessing this video brought a visual depiction of what my mom had to endure to arrive to a safer place. The video allows people to experience the hardships immigrants face. The familiarity with the Syrian crisis led me

Some view the influx of refugees negatively. Due to the bombings and shootings in Paris by ISIS, this has led to mass hysteria about Syrians and international refugees. As a result, many politicians in the United States have started to have reservations about allowing Syrians to enter their countries. White House press secretary, John Earnest, under former President, Barack Obama, announced that Obama’s goal was “to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year (of October 2016).” (CNN). This means that the United States would take in less than one percent of the more than four million Syrian refugees, which is approximately one fourth percent of refugees. Both civilians and politicians are afraid birth and crime rates will increase with the abundance of Syrian