10 minute read
Refugees Are Welcome Here
In 1984 political tensions were at its height in civil war torn Ethiopia. The military regime known as Derg staged a coup in 1974 and managed to topple the centuries old monarchy when they disposed of Emperor Haile Selassie, the longest standing monarch of Ethiopia. Derg promised a communist government where the wealth would be distributed evenly through nationalization and land distribution. Soon after all urban and rural land was seized from the Ethiopian Church, the imperial family, and almost all the wealth from the nobility and elite. Agricultural products were no longer offered on the free market and instead were controlled and redistributed by the government. Communism took form and controlled every aspect of a free market. The wealth that was promised to be redistributed by the government never materialized and was kept by the Derg military. To silence and suppress their political opponents, the Derg regime instituted communist red terror. Those who protested against the government, politicians, educated citizens and university students were seized, jailed, or shot on the spot by military soldiers.
Former Ethiopian dictator and Derg leader Mengistu Hailemariam standing in solidarity with Cuba’s Fidel and Raul Castro
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In 1984 Ethiopia experienced its most severe famine, the government controlled farms seized to produce any crops and the diaspora of its citizens began. Those who were able to escape fled, and those who tried to escape were captured and killed by Derg soldiers. Thousands of displaced Ethiopians walked hundreds of miles travelling from village to village to avoid the Derg military and fled to surroundingw countries like Egypt and Sudan in order to seek political refugee asylum in other developed nations.
My family in transit, awaiting refugee asylum passage to the United States, circa 1985-1987
My parents were one of those refugees and after a three and a half year journey travelling from Ethiopia and settling in Sudan, they were granted political refugee asylum and were allowed to resettle in the United States in 1988.
In 2017, nearly thirty years later in the United States under then newly elected president Donald Trump, the United States government implemented a travel ban detailing citizens or residents from eleven Muslim majority countries were prohibited from entering the United States. Refugees seeking asylum from any of those countries were effectively banned from applying for refugee asylum and with the sweeping executive action, millions of people fleeing persecution in their war torn countries were denied opportunities like my parents had. In Syria, the world’s largest refugee crisis occurred and is still happening as of today. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, 6.7 Syrians fled and another 6.2 million Syrians are displaced and trapped within Syria. In 2017 Turkey took over 3.4 million refugees, Lebanon took 1 million refugees (a quarter the size of its population). In Europe, Germany took over 530,000 refugees and Sweden has taken over 110,000. The smallest amount of refugees taken in 2017 was the United States with an all time low of 33,000. Over 6 million refugees fled war torn Syria to seek opportunity and advancement in other nations and the United States represented less than 1% of world relief to help alleviate this humanitarian crisis. What’s more startling is the condemnation refugees have received from political leaders in France, UK, Sweden, Italy, including the president of the United States.
US President Donald Trump in 2017 holding an executive order banning refugee entry from 11 muslim majority countries
Refugees were labeled unsafe, dangerous and as threats not only to Americans, but in other westernized nations in Europe. In 2019 the noun refugee is becoming commonplace taboo amongst Europeans who see some refugees as criminals, rapists and opportunists. Small strings of crimes committed by refugees has tainted the once sympathetic views Europeans had whilst in the United States and in other democracies, the threat of refugees and their perception by alternative right-wing parties as undercover terrorists and radicalized Islamists doesn’t shed an accurate light to the plight of a refugee. In 2015 when most European nations decided to open their borders to the refugees, the response was welcoming and in Germany the term welcome culture or ‘Willkommenskultur’ was used. But today’s response looks quite difference. Ask a Swede or German citizen how they feel about refugees and you might get a mixed response.
Libyan refugees await rescue on Italian waters
The rampant rise of crime and gun shootings in Stockholm and other major cities in Europe is being attributed to gang violence but public opinion attributes the rise of crime to the lack of successful integration for refugees. Of the 15,244 people involved in the gang scene in Sweden, 67% were born in Sweden. Swedish researchers say that the rampant gang culture has nothing to do with immigration as newcomers haven’t had enough time to integrate into gang culture.
Refugees come from all parts of the world, not just the Middle East. In Libya where civil war and modern day slavery has occurred, millions have fled the coastal country and have sailed across the Mediterranean in hopes of finding hope and freedom in countries like Greece and Italy. Those fleeing by boat do so at the jeopardy of their own lives as Italy has passed a new law to fine any boat up to €50,000 for rescuing any refugee boats that comes across Italian waters.
In Central America today there is a current refugee and migrant immigrant crisis of Central Americans from Venezuela, El Salvador and Honduras fleeing to the Mexican border in hopes of being able to enter the United States. The asylum seekers are fleeing their respective countries due to political persecution, unstable governments and seeking economic opportunities. The atrocities taking place today in the detention centers of border towns along the United States southern border to Mexico is quite appalling. Mothers and fathers are being separated from their children.
Children are being unlawfully detained in inhumane conditions where the centers are ‘overcrowded and unsanitary and some do not have access to soap, toothpaste, clean water or places to wash their hands or shower.’ ‘A May report from the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general found 900 people crammed into a space designed to accommodate 125 at most… They are subjected to “extreme cold temperatures” with “lights on 24 hours a day,” a pediatrician who has treated migrant children told CNN. There have been outbreaks of flu, lice, chicken pox and scabies.’ There are more than 100,000 people in these facilities with about 50,000 held in ICE Facilities (Immigrations Customs Enforcement), about 20,000 in CBP Centers (Customs Border Protection) and more than 12,000 children are being held in the custody of HHS (Health and Human Services). There is correct due process in which all refugees and asylum seekers must obey but that doesn’t come to point in which inhumane practices and negligence is used as a deterrent.
We all want a place to belong in this world and freedom like it always does, comes at a cost. My family left everything they had in Ethiopia, leaving behind both their parents, siblings and the life they were familiar with and over the course of a year faced famine, lack of resources and the struggle of raising a newborn baby. They travelled over 700 miles to Khartoum, Sudan in the hopes to seek refugee asylum in the United States where my uncle was awaiting to sponsor them in Dallas, Texas. Our family has been in the United States for over thirty years now and the contributions our family has made to the local community in helping other Ethiopians, their local church and friends have been countless over the years. Being American is a privilege coming from another other nation. My parents and family are living the American dream. My father earned his second degree in 1997 and after him, there have been over 15 college graduates within my family, the highest being a Doctorate in Dentistry.
There’s a misconception of refugees being criminals, dependent on government and social programs and not contributing to the country they have found refuge in. Let this stereotype and view of refugees be put to rest not only by the example of my family but the millions of hard working refugees around the world who work hard and strive with much effort to provide not only food and shelter for their families, but an better opportunity, one that could only have been provided if a door to asylum is open to them. Further on integration before I close. Germany has been the prime leader in helping refugees integrate into society. Last year alone Germany spent a record 23 billion euros on refugee resettlement.
Cheraz Chaudry (19) hopes a career in electrical engineering will help him stay in Germany. (Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)
Of that 23 billion, 7.9 billion euros went into keeping migrants outside of the European Union and helping improve conditions in their home countries and another 7.9 billion was spent on housing and integration. The spending is paying off. With Germany at an all time 30 year low unemployment rate at 5%. The trade industry took a hit as young Germans enjoyed the luxury of choice, opting to pass this traditional path to middle class life to pursue university degrees. Last year, one-third of German companies said they had training spots that went unfilled as vacancies hit a 20-year high, and these apprenticeships are being filled by refugees seeking a not only a better economic opportunity, but a secure opportunity to live freely and contribute to society. Germany needs these immigrants to fill jobs that few young people are willing to train for. “If Germans want to maintain their economic well-being, we need about half a million immigrants every year” said Wolfgang Kaschuba, former director of the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research.
The idea that refugees are the problem to society is a highly refuted and false claim made by all too many people, whether good intentioned or not. Refugees are certainly not the problem, WE ARE. Those who oppose the integration of migrants and refugees citing refutable claims is not only inhumane, it denies the right of other humans seeking to live a better life. Nationalist sentiment, in keeping a country the way it is, devoid of immigrants which has been popularized in recent times by then presidential candidate and current president Donald Trump, is a destructive trope and attitude that has spread throughout world politics. Famously the ‘Bre-Exit’ vote was not so much about the cost of membership the UK had to pay to stay in the EU but more about other EU countries moving to the UK and England and ‘stealing’ jobs from other whites. This idea of nationalism and far right politics, anti-immigration has taken root in politics across the European continent in countries like France, Sweden and even Italy.
My hope and prayer is that we as a collective body of people, humans begin to see others, including refugees as humans too. Specifically in a country like the United States where many nations have migrated to America to seek opportunity, my hope is that like our ancestors who stepped onto the shores of Ellis Island in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the British who came in the 1600s who left everything they had, were afforded opportunities to a new life as well as the Chinese in the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Like the European ancestors who were granted refuge, we too must grant the civil liberties to those who want to start a new life here in the United States and in other countries. History is upon us and it would behoove this generation to acutely look at our position and assess which side we want to be on.
