They achieved 20% of the popular vote in that year’s parliamentary election and would reach up to 28% if another ballot were called tomorrow, according to opinion polls. They were given 90 days to leave, leaving properties, businesses, homes and vehicles. After that, they’re on their own. Earlier this month, U.S. Reps.
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“IRC offices across the United States stand ready to assist an increased number of Syrian refugees’ arrival”, said Miliband.
Beyond these tensions within the country is the Turkish government’s well known antipathy to the armed Syrian Kurdish forces on its border. “In part yes, but if you take the bill as a whole it looks like it’s going to actually keep any refugees from arriving, so that doesn’t help Christian refugees, or anybody”. It’s an worldwide crisis that must be solved by all governments. German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to take at least 800,000 asylum seekers this year. “This refugee crisis very much plays into the xenophobic politics of the governing Fidesz party, and the even more xenophobic politics of its right-wing challenger, the Jobbik party”, Mitchell Orenstein, a professor of Central and Eastern European Politics at the University of Pennsylvania told Al Jazeera. Steinmeier urged the other G7 members, European countries and Gulf states to step up their financial contributions as well.
Gazing through his living room window on a quiet block here, a 48-year-old Syrian refugee ponders his new life in America.
She continued “the importance of [US] aid can not be underestimated”.
In a typical year, the 70,000 refugees the U.S. takes in annually accounts for almost 70 percent of the global total. Words often described to invoke fear are terrorists, criminals and illegals. We know why. But to determine how we can prevent more from falling into this flood. The latest available Government figures – which count up to June 2015 – show that 4,866 asylum applications were also accepted for people from Syria. They are prohibited from working legally, so those who do work illegally are exploited and underpaid, increasing social tensions between the refugees and their hosts. His 8-year-old son quips: “Here, you don’t see anyone on the street for two hours”.
The cause of the refugees is not being helped either by the showing of ISIS flag by a few among them. When Turkey first opened its doors to Syrian refugees, it expected that Assad would fall quickly and the refugees would return home. “Let’s bring more and more people to Calgary”.
Ontario Liberals have challenged Ottawa to admit 5,000 more Syrian refugees by end of year.
“We are dealing with one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history”, she said. It was willing to provide equivalent humanitarian aid to Greece, without explicit loan forgiveness, to avoid giving a wrong signal to other indebted Euro nations (namely Spain, Portugal, Italy) in trouble. This is the Canadian way.
Moreover, unless the distribution of refugees across nations is viewed as fair, there is bound to be political opposition to acceptance of more refugees in countries such as Germany, France, Austria and Sweden. Admittedly, many have faced problems of settlement, lack linguistic and cultural fluency, but they have settled well and have contributed to the Canadian mosaic and economic advancement. The Obama administration has asked Congress to approve funding for another 10,000 Syrian refugees in next year’s budget. Immediate action is needed to bring the refugees to Canada and complete their processing here to prevent more Alan Kurdi calamities and cut red tape.
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Mansoor Ladha is a Calgary-based journalist, travel writer and author of A Portrait in Pluralism: Aga Khan’s Shia Ismaili Muslims.
