The Refugee Question

By Everett Corder

As the U.S. gears up for the 2016 presidential election, every international issue is discussed and debated at length by candidates and political analysts throughout the country. Recently, one of those big issues has been whether or not candidates would allow people from Syria fleeing the terrorism in the Middle East to enter the U.S. as refugees.

Map of states reflecting their intent to accept or not accept refugees (Alyssa Herzog for The Hub@TTU)

Following multiple tragedies around the world and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, carried out by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married Muslim couple, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went as far as calling for a ban on letting any Muslims across the U.S. borders.

A campaign press release said the shutdown should continue until “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

For refugees in the Middle East, the ability to move to the U.S. may be essential for survival.

Tarek Kandakji is a Texas Tech doctoral student who came to Lubbock after being born in Syria and living in Jordan for most of his life. Kandakji said the situation in Syria has been bad for more than 30 years.

“If your brother says something bad about the government, you have to report your own brother, or your own father,” he said. “You do not have the freedom to speak.”

Since the Arab Spring in 2010, however, things have gotten even worse, and not just because of the Islamic State (IS).

After his father died in 2000, Bashar al-Assad became president of Syria through some quick constitutional amendments, Kandakji said, and the leader and his followers have committed plenty of brutal murders themselves.

“This is how the people live in Syria,” he said, “in terror.”

Kandakji himself came to the U.S. on an academic scholarship after losing his job and all of his money. Since getting to America, he has applied for asylum, but the process is still pending and could be for a long time.

Asylum is different from refugee status, in that it is granted to persons already in the U.S. who are unwilling or unable to go home because of a well-founded fear of persecution.

Tibor Nagy, the Texas Tech vice provost for international affairs, was once a refugee himself after fleeing Hungary in the ’50s. He noted who is defined as a refugee.

Currently, several European states, like France, have opened their borders, which Nagy said should not be a problem since they are the rich unit in the world.

As of December 2015, there are 4,283,224 Syrian refugees, according to the Syria Regional Refugee Response website.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has 2.1 million of those refugees registered in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. The Turkish government registered 1.9 million of those Syrian refugees. And more than 26,700 Syrian refugees were registered in North Africa.

The problem with Europe, Nagy said, is all the different laws each country has and their proximity to one another. The situation in Europe, he said, would be like if there were different border patrols and laws for every individual state in the U.S.

Nearly half the refugees in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon are men, with the male 0-11 and 18-59 age groups each making up around one-fifth of all refugees, according to the UNHCR demographic breakdown.

The breakdown also reported that 50.3 percent are women. Of all refugees  in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, females aged 0-11 made up 18.7 percent and females aged 18-59 were 23.7 percent.

Regardless of the problems it may cause other countries, Kandakji said, not helping the Syrian people will eventually just make things worse.

Kandakji said the biggest danger is those people who do not have the ability to escape because they do not have access to refugee block programs like he did.

He said they will eventually have nothing, and if left to fend for themselves in Syria, they will eventually turn to the IS group out of desperation, seeing it as their only option.

“With all the desperation [the Syrian people] have, add to that a brainwash, and you will be a terrorist,” he said. “Hopefully, people understand that not helping the refugees is not solving the problem. It’s really making a much much bigger problem much, much worse.”

Hasan Almekdash also came to the U.S. from Syria and works as a Texas Tech research assistant and instructor. He said he wants to be able to see his home again, and he cannot do that with the IS group still in power.

“It’s really terrible to know I might not see Syria forever,” Almekdash said.

Nicole Crites and RaShayla Daniels contributed to this report.

About JOUR 4350

JOUR 4350 is the multiplatform news delivery class, which is the capstone class for journalism majors within the College of Media & Communication.