Refugees and immigration

It's the greatest refugee crisis since WWII, and there are good arguments to say that it is America's fault, or at least that the country bears some responsibility, due to our various interventions in the area. Most are from Syria, which by many accounts is becoming a pretty hellish place to live, but there are people from all over the area being displaced by the fighting.

Countries have responded in various ways, Hungary appears to hate everybody unrelentingly and is pushing to get refugees anywhere else, while Germany has taken in something like 800,000 last I looked.

The USA of course, is not doing tons, these are largely Muslims after all, and with the restrictions on clearing refugees we put in post 9/11, you can guess how easy it is to grant asylum to them. That said, we have been slowly increasing the amount of people we accept, much to the rage of racists an the GOP presidential candidates, who are of course one and the same thing.

People use the term refugee interchangeably with immigrant, but they are not the same thing really, refugees are fleeing the very real possibility of being killed if they stay where they are, while immigrants are usually defined as "just" moving to somewhere they think will be better. Personally I find the distinction meaningless, an an attempt to limit or restrict people from coming into the country, for whatever reason, is callous and shortsighted.

First an foremost, the responsibility of those with more should be to help those with less, America is the country of more, at least according to the credit card ads. I don't see how it should be controversial to allow people who want to live here a chance to do so, be they Syrians fleeing war, Mexicans getting away from their corrupt government, or Canadians coming in for... some reason, I am sure there are a couple.

Yeah, it costs money to allow people in and get them set up, but immigrant populations, regardless of their origins, have traditionally been a net benefit to the economies they join, if nothing else by expanding the tax base, but also by starting businesses and participating in their local economies, and healthy local economies actually do spread the wealth around, as opposed to trickle-down economics, which it should be pretty clear by now doesn't do a damn thing for anyone except the rich.

By proposing anti-immigration policies, and rejecting refugees, America is rejecting the very concepts that made it strong, remember we were founded by people who wanted to get away from oppressive regimes, and assimilating newcomers and working with other countries has pretty much always paid off for the US in the long run.

Personally, I say take anyone who wants to come, re-establish and Ellis Island style immigration routine, eliminate ninety percent of the completely stupid, and expensive hoops they need to jump through for citizenship, and welcome people who want to be here, and who want to make things better for themselves.

These people were motivated enough to cross oceans and risk being shot by trigger happy racists to be here, they do this because they still think it is better than where they are coming from, why do we put so much effort into trying to prove them wrong?