In 1939, a ship carrying approximately 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany attempted to disembark in the United States and gain refuge. The U.S. government refused to accept them, fearing that they were Nazi spies. They were not spies; they were men, women, children seeking shelter and security from persecution and death. The ship, the MS St. Louis, was forced to turn back to Europe and 254 of the refugees were killed in the Holocaust.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring refugees from entry into the United States, as part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out "radical Islamic terrorists." His order bans Syrian refugees indefinitely and bars entry into the United States for 120 days from six other Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. Between 1975 and 2015, there have been zero fatal terror attacks on U.S. soil by immigrants or refugees from any of the seven countries listed in Trump's ban.
Let me repeat: Zero.
Yet once again, the United States has closed its borders and denied life to those who are seeking refuge from war. Once again, we justify our inhumane actions on the pretext of national security. And once again, we fail humanity at its greatest time of need.
The vetting in place for asylum seekers and refugees is already an extremely thorough process that takes 1-2 years. As one Syrian, Mostafa Hassoun, writes in Politico Magazine of his own experience undergoing the extensive process, "Over 15 months I was interviewed five times--in person, over the phone, by the United Nations and by the United States. They asked me about my family, my politics, my hobbies, my childhood, my opinions of the U.S., and even my love life. No less than four U.S. government agencies had the opportunity to screen me. By the time I received my offer to live in the United States, the U.S. officials in charge of my case file knew me better than my family and friends do."
Trump's ban also applies to all other immigrants from those seven countries, including students and workers who have visas. Already, the ban has had dire consequences--families torn apart, students not able to come back to finish their education, dreams dashed. People who spent hours, days, years of labor to save enough money to buy plane tickets to America and have undergone the process of getting a visa--they were not allowed to board planes headed to the States. Those who are currently here and do not hold U.S. citizenship are in limbo--they cannot leave because they will likely be denied re-entry.
We cannot let this continue. My fellow Americans, my fellow Arkansans, America is a nation of immigrants. Part of the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty reads, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." We come from Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, South America and are of many religions--Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism.
Even for those of you who have been here for generations, there was a time when your own ancestors were immigrants. Would you have had it that they be turned away because of where they came from or on the basis of their religion?
The world is now facing the largest refugee crisis since World War II; these people are fleeing conflict and oppression. They come in search for shelter and security and to start a new life for their families. Will we deny them of these basic human rights? Will we continue to shut our borders to those in need?
Will we repeat 1939 and send innocent people back to their deaths?
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Saba Naseem is an alumnus of the University of Arkansas. She is a former Fulbright Scholar and has previously been published in Smithsonian Magazine and Washingtonian Magazine.
Editorial on 02/01/2017