UNITED STATES,
REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS NEWSLETTER #3, December 17,
2015.
COMPILED BY DICK
BENNETT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
(#1, August 2, 2014; #2 Nov. 24, 2015)
Contents Refugees,
Asylum Newsletter #2 (November 24, 2015)
Contents Refugees,
Asylum Newsletter #3
Christianity
and Refugees: See Newsletters on Jesus
Countries Rescuing Syrian Refugees and
How Well?
Canada 25,000
Syrians
Other Countries
and UNHCR, Google Search
US Should Take More
Dick, US Should
Harbor More Refugees
Daalder, And
More Syrians
CNN, Pressure
on US to Take More
Film on
Xenophobia
Lazare, Common
Dreams: US Helped Cause the Crisis
Arkansas
Emergency Management
Hinckly, CSM: Marshallese
Climate Refugees to Northwest Arkansas
Move-On Campaign to
Increase Refugees
OMNI Latin
American Children’s Coalition Fundraiser
UA/OMNI Endowed
Scholarship for Asylum-Seekers
Hoyt Purvis, US,
S. Africa, Racism, Refugees, and Xenophobia
Refugee Jesus and Refugees 2015
It's not just
that God came, but how God came. It wasn't accidental that the savior of the
world was born to a poor peasant woman in an occupied country in an animal
stall because they were literally homeless at the time of his birth. And soon
Jesus and his family were made refugees
and had to flee their country because the most powerful political ruler
around the Christ child felt very threatened by his coming.
Jim Wallis,
Huffington Post, Dec. 27, 2015
COUNTRIES RESCUING REFUGEES 2015
Canada: We'll resettle 25,000 Syrian
refugees
Ottawa (CNN)Justin Trudeau's newly
elected government has confirmed it will resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees in
Canada within three months, giving top priority to those who are a lower
security risk.
The plan as outlined prioritizes families and vulnerable
individuals, including those from the LGBT community.
Single unaccompanied men will be excluded from the government
resettlement program for now. However, government officials say those
individuals can still apply to come to Canada through private sponsorship
programs or could possibly be resettled through a government-sponsored program
later in 2016.
Justin Trudeau
"Through the rest of 2016, we will bring in more
refugees," said Canada's Immigration and Refugee Minister John McCallum at
a news briefing in Ottawa on Tuesday.
"I've been saying time and time again, that yes, we want to
bring them fast, but we also want to do it right," he said adding,
"I've heard Canadians across this country saying, 'yes you have to do it
right, and if it takes a little bit longer to do it right, then take the extra
time.' "
Prime Minister Trudeau had promised during the election campaign
to resettle 25,000 refugees by the end of year. Trudeau says he extended the
deadline because of operational and security challenges.
White House asked to help
Syrian refugees 05:59
In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
Trudeau admitted that the Paris terror attacks had an influence on public perceptions
and that his government decided it would be best to do all security checks on
the ground in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey before allowing refugees to board
planes to Canada.
"It would allow Canadians to be more reassured. Like I
said, we want these families arriving to be welcomed, not feared," he said
during an interview Tuesday with the CBC.
The Canadian government has launched an information campaign
nationwide using the hashtag, #WelcomeRefugees. It is encouraging Canadians to
donate, volunteer or even sponsor refugees.
Two recent polls conducted in Canada after the Paris terror
attacks indicate that a small majority of Canadians oppose the plan to resettle
refugees mainly because of security concerns.
Despite that, every province in Canada has agreed to take in
refugees and charity organizations have been inundated with offers from private
citizens eager to welcome and help resettle refugees.
Canadian government ministers tasked with screening the refugees
called this "a big humanitarian project" that represents the
"best values and character of the country."
"That's why safety and security have always been at the
very top of our priority list. From day one, we have repeatedly said that we
will not compromise the quality of the security work that must get done,"
said Ralph Goodale, Canada's public safety minister.
Goodale said the security evaluations to be conducted on the
ground in the Middle East will be robust, integrated and multilayered.
When they arrive in Canada, refugees will temporarily be housed
in former military barracks, vacant hospitals or hotels and also with families
who have volunteered to sponsor refugees. The first plane load of refugees is
expected to touch down in early December.
Canada says it is already working closely with the UNHCR to identify and screen
the most vulnerable refugees, the bulk of whom will come from Jordan and
Lebanon. Canada has also pledged to take refugees of all faiths.
[I forwarded this CNN report on Canada’s generosity to our
congressional reps accompanied by a note urging each to revere the Statue of
Liberty and to imitate Canada. –Dick]
COUNTRIES RESCUING SYRIAN
REFUGEES, Google Search, December 21, 2015
Adwww.unrefugees.org/donate
When Syrians Have Flee Their
Homes, You Can Be There. Donate Today.
Giving Refugees
Hope · 501(c)(3) Non-profit · Rapid Crisis Response
USA for UNHCR's mission, work, &
info about tax-deductible donations
info about tax-deductible donations
UNHCR provides food, shelter, and
medical care in crisis situations.
medical care in crisis situations.
www.rescue.org/crisis-syria
International
Rescue Committee
Nearly five years after
the outbreak of war, the International Rescue Committee has helped more than 3
million Syrian
refugees and
internally displaced people to recover and rebuild their lives. ... The
IRC is currently providing support to Syrian refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon ...
www.pri.org/.../5-groups-doing-important-wor...
Public
Radio International
Sep 3, 2015 - A Syrian refugee from Aleppo holds
his one month old daughter moments after ... a charity that runs a fleet of rescue boats to save
refugees at sea, told the ... to “help people to stay in Syria instead of
fleeing to another country.
qz.com/567709/how-to-help-syrian-refugees/
Dec 12, 2015 - Those helping with the
migration and resettlement of the nation's 6.5 ... A Syrian refugee is pictured at the Al Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian
city of ... MSF has two ships in the Mediterranean to rescue those fleeing
by ...
www.nydailynews.com/.../david-miliband-syrian-refugees-not-t...
Daily
News
Nov 15, 2015 - Syrian refugees are not a threat:
The vetting process is long and ... effort in Syria and the neighboring countries over the past
four-and-a-half years, ... of them supported by my organization, the International Rescue Committee, ...
UNITED STATES
“Number of applicants for a U.S. refugee
program created in 2014 for Central American children: 5,429. Number of children accepted to date: 0.” “Harper’s Index.” Harper’s
Magazine (January 2016).
Why the US Should Help
Refugees by Dick Bennett
Recently several reports in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette confused the meanings of migrant and refugee-- in
regard to Europe’s reception of refugees (Germany welcomes migrants says a
headline, but “thousands of refugees” were allowed to cross Austria says the
text) and to the refugee child Aylan Kurdi’s body found on a Turkish beach
after “12 migrants drowned.” Migrants
move from place to place for work, refugees flee to any place where they might
survive. One report highlights the
confusion when it refers to “a wave of migration, driven by war and
deprivation, that is unparalleled since World War II.” Farmworkers harvest melons and grapes in one
area or nation and apples in another.
Farmworkers, mechanics, teachers, small business owners, men and women,
young and old, to escape the ferocities of war, desperately head toward rumored
safety. The difference is crucial,
because for migrants nations are not ordinarily expected to rescue them from massive,
mortal danger, but only to help them, as through social services. In contrast, moral and legal imperatives
demand rescue for fleeing refugees,
as the name cries out—refugees, people
fleeing—particularly when their
desperation derives partly from US violence.
But restrictive immigration laws
drastically limit the number allowed in.
Laws governing refugees reflect the long
history of US aggression and conquest.
One way to understand the history of the establishment of the United
States of America is to study the history of the over 400 native nations forced
by the armies accompanying the European settlers either to fight, flee, or
surrender. The result was the reduction
of the Native Indian population from some dozen million to at one moment less
than a million We have a history of
creating refugees, as in Latin America and the Middle East.
Just as there was no national outcry
over the genocide on US soil, there has been little protest over its
smaller continuation today. Listen to
Juan Gonzalez’ description of the “astonishing jumps” in Central American
inhabitants during the 1980s: “This
sudden exodus did not originate with some newfound collective desire for the
material benefits of U.S. society; rather, vicious civil wars and the social
chaos those wars engendered forced the region’s people to flee, and in each
case, the origins and spiraling intensity of those wars were a direct result of
military and economic intervention by our own government.”
And the chaos in the Middle East arises
from US preferential treatment for Israel, placing military bases near holy
sites (Saudi Arabia), and invading country after country preemptively. Let us at least care for the victims of US
violence.
References:
Dunbar-Ortiz,
Roxanne. An Indigenous People’s History of the United States.
Beacon, 2014.
Beacon, 2014.
Gonzalez,
Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Rev. ed.
Penguin Books, 2011. Chap. 8, “Central America: Intervention Comes Home
to Roost,” p. 129.
Penguin Books, 2011. Chap. 8, “Central America: Intervention Comes Home
to Roost,” p. 129.
AND
TAKE MORE FROM SYRIA
Ten
Thousand Is Not Enough: Why The U.S. Must Take More Syrian Refugees BY MARC
DAALDER. Sept. 11, 2015, In These Times.
Millions of
Syrians have been forced from their homeland due to a conflict that we inflamed
Though the U.S.
officially opposed ISIS, some U.S.-supported rebels have in turn begun fighting
for ISIS, and some U.S.-provided weapons have ended up in ISIS’s hands when it
seized rebel outposts.
Before dawn on
September 2, in Bodrum, Turkey, 16 people—mostly refugees from the civil war in
Syria—boarded a tiny boat meant to only carry eight people. Just minutes after
the craft set sail for the island of Kos, in Greece, they hit choppy waters.
The captain fled, jumping overboard, and the refugees aboard the boat could not
prevent it from capsizing. Hours later, bodies began to wash ashore, and
Turkish photographer Nilufer Demir started to snap pictures—including the
now-infamous image of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, face down in the sand.
The civil war
in Syria has lasted more than four years and displaced 11 million people. Four
million have left the country. Some now reside in refugee camps in Jordan,
Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Kurdistan; others have made it to Western countries,
where they are not even guaranteed asylum. Others still have perished in
dangerous sea voyages: The U.N. estimates that 2,636 Syrians have died crossing
the Mediterranean this year alone.
In the days
since the photograph of Alan Kurdi’s tiny drowned body went viral, countries
across the world have opened their borders, increased their immigration quotas
and begun serious efforts to address the refugee crisis. Germany, already a
champion of the refugee cause, announced it can accept as many as 500,000
migrants a year for several years; Hungary is now bussing refugees from its
borders through Central Europe; France will take in 24,000 Syrians over the
next two years; and the UK will admit 20,000 over the next five.
While these
latter numbers may sound paltry, they are still gigantic in comparison to the
American commitment, when measured as a percentage of population. Since the
start of the crisis, the United States
has admitted 1,500 Syrian refugees and now plans to admit an additional 10,000
next year. This represents 0.003 percent of the population, or one refugee per
31,890 U.S. citizens. Comparatively, Germany will accept some 800,000 refugees
by the end of the year, new estimates predict—almost 1 percent of its total
population, or one refugee per 100 Germans.
The United States has a moral obligation
to admit vastly more Syrian refugees.
This is, in part, because every country must step up during a humanitarian
crisis of this scale. But more importantly, this is because the U.S. has fueled the refugee crisis in more
ways than one.
Many Syrians
are fleeing the violence caused by the war between the Assad regime and the
Syrian rebels—rebels whom the United States has funded and armed.
Others are
seeking to escape the brutality of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
America is widely cited as the unintentional creator of ISIS, which is now the
first, second or third largest armed force operating in Syria, depending on
whom you ask. The Islamic State first gained traction in the area shortly after
the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Though the U.S. officially opposed ISIS,
some U.S.-supported rebels have in turn begun fighting for ISIS, and some
U.S.-provided weapons have ended up in ISIS’s hands when it seized rebel
outposts.
Even before
ISIS erupted onto the world stage in December 2013 with its invasion of Iraq,
it had perpetrated attacks against ethnic minorities and generally enforced a
reign of terror in the regions under its control. Yet rather than seeing ISIS
as a threat, the U.S. was so laser-focused on fighting Assad that 2012 Pentagon
report spoke warmly of the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared
Salafist principality”—precisely what ISIS did. “This is exactly what the
supporting powers to the opposition [i.e., the United States and its allies]
want in order to isolate the Syrian regime,” the report read.
By not only
unintentionally providing the circumstances for ISIS’s founding, but also
welcoming its development as a Sunni counterweight to Assad, the United States
exacerbated the refugee problem.
According to
Time, in a single 72-hour period, more than 130,000 Syrians fled across the
border to Turkey as ISIS advanced on the town of Kobani. Yazidi minorities are
fleeing ethnic cleansing—some 40,000 were chased from the town of Sinjar in
Iraq in 2014.
Though the U.S.
is pouring billions of dollars into humanitarian funds, this simply isn’t
enough. No amount of money can completely address the stark human cost of the
refugee crisis. What’s needed is a place for refugees to stay.
For the United
States to admit only 10,000 out of four million is cruel. When you take in the
fact that America caused this crisis, that many of those four million refugees
were chased from their homes by an armed militia that the United States helped
to create, that cruelty turns to utter inhumanity.
One reason the
United States admits so few is because immigration policy demands background
checks be performed before any asylum seekers enter the country. These checks
can take up to two years, and is not uncommon in the West. Germany, however,
has made an exception for Syrian refugees, saying it will perform background
checks after admitting them. Realistically, these refugees do not represent any
sort of terror threat.
Regardless,
what right does the United States have to reject refugees on safety grounds? It
was supposedly in the interest of America’s security that Iraq was invaded and
that Syrian militias were supported. Pursuing these interests led to the
displacement of millions, the impoverishment of tens of thousands and the
deaths of thousands, many more children like Alan Kurdi among them. Now the United
States would, while still trying to preserve its own safety, leave these
refugees with no place to go.
The Statue of
Liberty, that much vaunted symbol of freedom and welcome, bears the
inscription:
Give me your
tired, your poor,
Your huddled
masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched
refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the
homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp
beside the golden door!
Today, the
golden door is closed to all but a paltry few Syrians. The tired, poor and
huddled masses will just have to wait until their background check is
processed.
MARC DAALDER
Marc Daalder is
a writer and student living in Massachusetts. He attends Amherst College,
writes for the student publication AC Voice, and spends his spare time
tweeting, blogging and writing fiction.
www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/politics/us-syrian-refugees-pressure/
CNN Sep 9, 2015 - Of the 4 million Syrian refugees who have fled attacks by their ... has brought in 1,500 Syrian refugees; European countries are bearing the
brunt of ... The International Rescue Committee called for the United States to open
its ...
Holiday Spirit Eludes Trump’s
Hate Speech
12-23-15
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Published on Friday,
September 04, 2015 by Common Dreams
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US
Rebuked for Failing Refugees
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/09/04/major-culprit-creating-crisis-us-rebuked-failing-refugees
Observers say the U.S. is not only lagging in its humanitarian
response, but also driving the war and conflict behind ongoing displacement by Sarah Lazare, staff writer
Children rest on the ground at
Piraeus harbor in Greece. (Photo: Michael Debets/Pacific/Barcroft )
As
refugees are stranded at train stations, attacked by riot police, and killed during the perilous journey across the
Mediterranean, Europe's failure to address the rising humanitarian crisis is
being met with global outrage and sorrow.
Now, many
are also looking across the Atlantic to the United States, where observers say
key responsibility for the crisis lies—not only because the country is lagging
in its humanitarian response, but also because its war policies lie at the root
of the ongoing displacement.
"Iraqis,
Syrians, Palestinians, and Libyans are not running away from their homes
because of a natural disaster," Raed Jarrar, expert on Middle East
politics and government relations manager for the American Friends Service
Committee, told Common Dreams. "The U.S. should see this
crisis as partially caused by its own actions in the region."
White
House press secretary Josh Earnest said at a press briefing on Thursday that the
United States sees no "impending policy changes" in light of the
worsening crisis. He indicated the U.S. plan will remain focused on lending
assistance from afar while letting EU nations take the lead on confronting the
crisis. "There is certainly capacity in Europe to deal with this
problem," Earnst said, "and the United States certainly stands with
our European partners."
"Iraqis,
Syrians, Palestinians, and Libyans are not running away from their homes
because of a natural disaster. The U.S. should see this crisis as partially caused
by its own actions in the region."
—Raed Jarrar, American Friends Service Committee
—Raed Jarrar, American Friends Service Committee
Since the
beginning of the Syrian Civil War in March 2011, the U.S. estimates it has
contributed over $4 billion in aid to those impacted by the conflict. That figure,
Earnest declared, is "certainly more than any other country has
done."
But
Phyllis Bennis, senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told Common
Dreams that such claims are factually true, yet misleading. First of all,
explained Bennis, the European Union donates money as a group. "But more
significant," she continued, "is the fact that the U.S. is—by a high
margin—the largest economy in the world, representing somewhere near 25 percent
of the global economy. We should be paying 25 percent of whatever the United
Nations says it needs, just as a starting point, without blinking. We don't do
that."
What's
more, many have pointed out that aid dollars pale in comparison to U.S.
military spending. Yacoub El Hillo, the top United Nations humanitarian official
in Syria, recently noted to the New York Times that
while the U.S. government spends $68,000 an hour on warplanes targeting ISIS,
the UN grapples with dramatic funding shortfalls in which it has less than 50
percent of what it needs to care for Syrians uprooted by war.
Oxfam America
is calling on the United States to immediately boost the amount of money it
sends to the World Food Program, which warned in mid-August that it is facing
"critical funding shortages that forced it to reduce the level of the
assistance it provides to some 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon,
Turkey, Iraq and Egypt."
And then
there is the matter of the refugees themselves. The U.S. has admitted roughly
1,500 Syrian refugees since 2011 and says that it will resettle
no more than 8,000 by the end of 2016. In 2013, the last year for which
Homeland Security statistics are available, the U.S. granted asylum to just 36
people from Syria.
"This
is getting attention now because refugees are trying to flood into Europe. But
this should not just be about how do we support the Europeans."
—Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy StudiesThis puts the U.S. far behind Germany, which has committed to accepting up to 800,000 refugees by the end of this year.
—Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy StudiesThis puts the U.S. far behind Germany, which has committed to accepting up to 800,000 refugees by the end of this year.
However,
even Germany's commitments pale in comparison to the roughly 4 million Syrian
refugees who have fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq—where a refugee
crisis has long been brewing. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees now comprise one
quarter of the population.
"This
is getting attention now because refugees are trying to flood into
Europe," said Bennis. "But this should not just be about how do we
support the Europeans."
The aid
group International Rescue Committee is circulating a petition for the the U.S. to resettle at
least 65,000 Syrian refugees by 2016, and it has so far garnered nearly 12,000
signatures. And 14 Senate Democrats have joinedin the call to "dramatically
increase the number of Syrian refugees that we accept for resettlement."
But many
insist the ultimate solution lies in creating the conditions that will allow
refugees to return home—where U.S.-led policies laid the groundwork for the ongoing
violence, including the rise of ISIS.
"The
U.S. should consider some immediate humanitarian solutions to ease the
suffering of millions of refugees fleeing the Middle East, but we should also
keep in mind that humanitarian assistance is not the solution to this
crisis," Jarrar emphasized. "The ultimate solution to the onging
refugee crisis is a political solution that will stabilize the region and give
refugees the option to go back home."
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is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
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HOW’S ARKANSAS PREPARING FOR REFUGEES?
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
How is your Emergency Management Office
Responding to Climate Change?
Preparing? This is the agency
responsible to “manage” such a crisis. Have you talked with them? In 2010 I sent the officers a list of books
explaining warming and its sure consequences.
For example, one of the books reported on the S. Pacific island nation Tuvalu
arranging with New Zealand for dual passports.
A few years later the officers
were still in denial, despite I assume their awareness of the Katrina refugees
who had remained in our town. (One
dismissed warming offhand while another thought warming was from the “core”--from
molten lava get it?). They had read no
books, no articles, and apparently not even newspaper reports of melting
glaciers, rising seas, and increasing weather extremes. What did they think the word “emergency”
means? I hope you have had better luck than I.
This should be no light matter for those
whose job is “Emergency Management,” public safety. Our county judges and mayors are finally
responsible. Maybe I should have begun
with them. It’s not too late. Dick
Marshallese in Arkansas
In Arkansas, a growing population of 'climate change refugees'
Rising
sea levels have prompted thousands of natives from the Marshall Islands to flee
their homes and relocate to Springdale, Arkansas.
By Story Hinckley, Christian Science, Monitor Staff, NOVEMBER
29, 2015
Valentino Keimbar, a native of the Marshall
Islands, moved 6,000 miles away from his home in the Pacific Ocean last year to
Springdale, Arkansas because of climate change.
Located between Hawaii and Australia, the
Marshall Islands are made up of 29 atolls and five islands with a population of
about 70,000, all of whom live about six feet above sea level.
And another 10,000 Marshallese live in
northwest Arkansas. The government of the Marshall Islands even has an official
consular office in Springdale.
“Arkansas is the land of opportunity,”
Josen Kaious, from the Marshall Islands town of Laura, told the Associated
Press.
Because this Pacific island nation is so
small, the Marshallese population in Arkansas attribute their Springdale
settlement to one man, John Moody, who moved to the US in 1979 after the first wave of flooding.
Moody’s family eventually moved to Springdale to live with him and work for
Tyson and other poultry companies based in Arkansas, eventually causing a
steady flow of extended friends and family migrating to Springdale.
One migrant named Roselinta told CNN that she
likes Arkansas because it is far away from the ocean, meaning it is safe.
“Probably in 10 to 20 years from now, we’re all going to move,”
Keimbar told the Associated Press.
But the Marshall Islands is not the only
country to witness thousands of climate migrants. The Maldives in the Indian
Ocean, the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, and the island of Tuvalu south of
the Marshall Islandsare also at risk.
“If we get climate change wrong there is a
very real danger we shall seelevels of mass migration as yet
unparalleled,” United Kingdom shadow minister of immigration Chris
Bryant said in a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research. “The
United Nations (UN) estimates that in 2008 20 million people were displaced by
climate change.” And in the long term, “you can imagine that the UN estimates
of 200 million such refugees, more than the total number of worldwide migrants
today, may be about right,” said Bryant.
Some experts even predict "internal migration" by
American climate refugees moving throughout the United States because of
extreme weather conditions.
“If you do not like it hot and do not want to
be hit by a hurricane, the options of where to go are very limited,” Camilo
Mora, a geography professor at the University of Hawaii and lead author
of a 2014 paper published in Nature that
predicts unprecedented temperatures worldwide by 2047.
“The best place really is Alaska,” Dr. Mora
told The New York Times. “Alaska is going to be the next
Florida by the end of the century.”
“We think of environmental refugeeism as
something that afflicts the developing nations but
not us,” climatologist Michael Mann told The Guardian. “But if the
drought in California becomes the new normal, and there’s a very real
possibility that it does, then we are going to see people driven from their
communities, driven from that state.”
Although developed countries such as the US
will have their share of climate refugees, Mora and his colleagues agree that
other countries like the Marshall Islands will suffer first.
“The fact that the earliest climate
departures occur in low-income countries further highlights an obvious
disparity between those who benefit economically from the
processes leading to climate change and those who will have to pay for most of
the environmental and social costs,” they write.
“It’s not our fault that the tide is getting higher,”
Carlon Zedkaia, a Marshall Island native told the Associated Press. “Just
somebody else in this world that wants to get rich.”
CAMPAIGN TO INCREASE NUMBER OF REFUGEES
MOVE-ON CALLS ON OUR TOWN
MOVE-ON CALLS ON OUR TOWN
On Saturday,
September 12, 2015 12:53 PM, "Jo Comerford, MoveOn.org Civic Action"
<moveon-help@list.moveon.org> wrote:
his is a
moment for open-hearted courage. America, at our best, is a land that embraces
migrants and refugees. We've done it before. And we can do it again.
Dear MoveOn member,
A week ago, our hearts were broken
by the photo of a little boy, drowned, lying alone in the sand.
But new images of people with
open arms welcoming exhausted Syrian refugees the world
over have begun to put our hearts back together.1 The profound decency of ordinary folks
is driving governments to respond to this crisis.2
Now it's America's turn to act.
On Thursday, President Obama said he would allow 10,000
Syrian refugees to enter the United States.3 It's a step in the right direction,
but it's a tiny fraction of what's needed. In fact, that number is 1/80th the
number welcomed by Germany, a country far smaller than the U.S.4, 5
That's why MoveOn members and our friends are launching AmericaWelcomes, an
urgent national campaign to raise the number of Syrian refugees admitted into
the U.S. to at least
100,000 and to
encourage people in local communities across the country to open their hearts
and extend a welcome.
It's easy. Once you click, there's a
big button at the top of the page that says, "Add your own photo
here." It will have all the information and resources you need.
We'll make sure these pictures
reach President Obama, the U.S. State Department, and the national press, making it
unmistakably clear that Americans stand ready to embrace refugees and that we
demand solutions to this crisis that are humane, dignified, and worthy of
our shared human values.
We're partnering with tremendous allies,
including Refugee Council USA and USA for UNHCR (the United Nation's refugee
agency), to show that Americans
in every city and town across the country are awake to the plight of Syrian and
other refugees fleeing and that we are ready to do more to help.
On
Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry indicated that President Obama
wants to "do what we can" to increase the number of Syrians welcome
in the United States.6
This is not a moment for our
country to do only "what we can." This is a moment for everyone to do
what we must—in Washington, D.C. and in our local communities.
Will you take five minutes today to
take a photo that could help make a difference in the lives of tens of
thousands of people?
MoveOn members have already
responded to the Syrian refugee crisis by donating $220,000 to UNHCR. But as
this crisis intensifies, it's clear that we are called to do more. We must not
turn our backs on families fleeing the horrors of war and devastation. In
partnership with great groups like Welcoming
America, we must demonstrate that we are committed
to building a nation that truly welcomes and sustains migrants and
refugees from around the world.
It begins now with your photo and
with your heartfelt message of welcome.
Thanks for all you do.
–Jo, Mark, Stephen, Jadzia, and the
rest of the team
Sources:
1. "We walk together: a Syrian
family's journey to the heart of Europe," The Guardian, September 10,
2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307096&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=5
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307096&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=5
2. "Thousands of Icelanders
Have Volunteered to Take Syrian Refugees Into Their Homes," Time, September 1, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307089&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=7
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307089&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=7
3. "Obama calls on US to
resettle 'at least 10,000 Syrian refugees' in 2016 fiscal year," The Guardian, September 10,
2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307092&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=8
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307092&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=8
4. "Europe's Refugee Crisis by
the Numbers," ABC News, September 7, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307090&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=9
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307090&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=9
5. "Syrian refugees: Which
countries welcome them, which ones don't," CNN, September 10, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307086&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=10
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307086&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=10
6. "Kerry: U.S. committed to
accepting more Syrian refugees," CNN, September 9, 2015
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307091&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=11
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=307091&id=132069-1722697-vsNboPx&t=11
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See below for more on
Syria
ARKANSAS’ CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES
Senator John Boozman: (202)224-4843
Website Email: http://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
Senator Tom Cotton: (202)224-2353
Website Email: http://www.cotton.senate.gov/content/contact-tom
Rep. Rick
Crawford, 1st District: (202)225-4076
Website Email: http://crawford.house.gov/contact/
Rep.
French Hill, 2nd District: (202)225-2506
Website Email: https://hill.house.gov/contact/email
Rep.
Steve Womack, 3rd District: (202)225-4301
Website Email: http://womack.house.gov/contact/
1119 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Washington, DC 20515
3333 Pinnacle Hills, Suite 120
Rogers, Arkansas 72758
Rogers, Arkansas 72758
Rep.
Bruce Westerman, 4th District: (202) 225-3772
President Barack Obama: Comments: 202-456-1111, Switchboard: 202-456-1414
The
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
CONTENTS:
UNITED STATES, REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS NEWSLETTER #2, Nov. 24, 2015
PETITIONS,
APPEALS IN SUPPORT OF ASYLUM
Win Without
War, Contact Your Senators
AFSC, Contact
Your Senators
Bernie Sanders
Bill of Rights
Defense Committee (BORDC)
US Writers
UNHCR
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
UN
WIRE Reports on Climate and Refugees
UNITED STATES, REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS
FLEEING WAR
Choosing to Act
from Love Instead of Fear
Political
Struggle: Win Without War, S.2145, the
Middle East Refugee
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act
Schooling
of Somalia Muslim Women in the US
SYRIA CIVIL WAR
Intervention
in Syria Should Be More or Less?
Friends
Committee for National Legislation (FCNL): “Our love for refugees as fellow
humans, whose lives matter, needs to trump our fear of the violence
they're running from.”
ARKANSAS
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/ADG)
(See
below for contacting Arkansas’ Senators and Representatives)
WWII
Concentration Camps for Japanese-AMERICANS No Parallel
Governor
Hutchinson: No Room at the Arkansas Inn
and No Stable
Either—Only Greed, Jingoism, Xenophobia, National Security (i.e. Fear
Down to His Socks), and Opportunism
Either—Only Greed, Jingoism, Xenophobia, National Security (i.e. Fear
Down to His Socks), and Opportunism
Arkies Reply
The Christian Compassion Tradition
The US Political Tradition of a Nation
of Immigrants
And More
FLEEING
INDIVIDUAL ABUSE
Ann Medlock,
Giraffe: Paula Lucas Fleeing UAE
CLIMATE CHANGE
REFUGEES
Refugees
International, Population Displacement and Climate Change
Climate
Displacement 2015, Google Search, Nov.
21, 2015
HISTORICAL AND
GLOBAL CONTEXTS
McFadden, Rescue of Jewish Children from Nazi
Germany
The Demise of the Homogeneous State in ME and West
as Cause.
Tomgram, “the
Great Unraveling”; John Feffer, “Splinterlands,” Looking Back
from 2050
from 2050
BUILDING THE
FUTURE OF IMMIGRANTS
Equitable Education for Displaced
Populations by Elinor
L. Brown, Anna
Krasteva,
Krasteva,
Contact your
Senators, Representatives, and President Obama
For research purposes, specific subjects can be located in the
following alphabetized index, and searched on the blog using the search
box. The search box is located in the upper left corner of the webpage.
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/ See: Arab Spring, Central American Children, Dick’s UA Scholarship for Students Seeking Asylum, Displaced Persons, Hurricanes/Typhoons, Indigenous People Genocide, Islands (Rising Seas), Jewish Holocaust WWII, Korea, OMNI Ecology Climate Refugees, Rising Seas, Syria, Tibet, Vietnam, Warming, Wars, more.
Newsletter Index: http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/dicks-newsletter-index/ See: Arab Spring, Central American Children, Dick’s UA Scholarship for Students Seeking Asylum, Displaced Persons, Hurricanes/Typhoons, Indigenous People Genocide, Islands (Rising Seas), Jewish Holocaust WWII, Korea, OMNI Ecology Climate Refugees, Rising Seas, Syria, Tibet, Vietnam, Warming, Wars, more.
(479)
442-4600
2582 Jimmie Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72703
2582 Jimmie Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72703
END REFUGEES NEWSLETTER #3
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