Innocent refugees hurt by terrorist attacks on Paris

The terrorist attacks that took place on Nov. 13, 2015 in Paris gave the whole world a scare. When news of the City of Lights being under attack became known, countries came together to support France and the country’s national colors were seen around the globe. However, the attacks have hurt more than just France; they have come to hurt innocent Syrian refugees as well.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Nov. 19 to pause the relatively small number of Syrian refugees the U.S. is willing to admit because it became known that one of the Paris terrorists was posing as a Syrian refugee. While this was our country’s attempt to protect its citizens from another 9/11, this decision is hurting the refugees who are in refugee camps. This is hurting the Syrian women, children, and elderly in refugee camps. This is hurting innocent families seeking refuge, not the terrorists.

To begin, the probability of successfully entering the U.S. in disguise as a refugee is extremely slim. First, the ISIS terrorist would have to travel to a refugee camp, joining the four million other Syrian refugees outside Syria. Then, he or she would have to be among those selected from the relatively tiny number of 23,000 refugees of the United Nations agency has flagged to the U.S. to be worthy for consideration. Finally, the terrorist would have to be among the only 10,000 Syrian refugees the U.S. is planning to admit the following year.

Moreover, according to the U.S. State Department, the vast majority of those admitted are children, women, and the sick and elderly. Only two percent of those admitted to the U.S. are those who are “military age males” between ages eighteen and twenty. The likelihood of a terrorist getting to the U.S. through the Syrian refugee program is therefore extremely small and unlikely.
Furthermore, clearing the U.S. refugee screening process would be a difficult task. The European refugee admission system is very different from the U.S. system for Syrians, largely due to the fact that the U.S. is geographically separated from Syria.

As described by senior U.S. State Department official Anne Richard at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Nov. 19, a Syrian refugee trying to get into the U.S. is “scrutinized and interviewed by officials from the National Counterterrorism Center, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Pentagon.” Syrian refugees must give up their biometric data and even submit their biographic histories.

Finally, there are much easier methods to get into the U.S. Rather than waiting to be accepted into the U.S. as a refugee, it would be much easier for the terrorist to arrive on student visas or benefit from the visa waiver program, which allows citizens of many Western countries to visit the U.S. for up to three months without a visa. These methods would be much easier than trying to enter the U.S. as a Syrian refugee.

The U.S. stopping the flow of Syrian immigrants was an attempt to protect its citizens. However, it is doing more harm to the innocent refugees than it is to the terrorists. The low probability, the difficulty in passing the screening process, and the easier methods to get into the U.S. all contribute to this conclusion. Rather than hurting innocent refugees, the U.S. should focus its efforts on the hole in the visa program.