Dear Future President,

Refugees from all over the world come to our country seeking a new life. They hope to come here to make a better living and to be able to have more freedom. However, how many of these people do you think really are refugees? How many of these “refugees” could be coming into our country not for a free life, but to harm our country? “President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing bringing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to this country when the FBI has told Congress they cannot properly vet those refugees.” -Ted Cruz. People wanting to let these refugees in without checking their information is a huge risk for our country in many ways. That’s why I think we need a proper system of vetting these refugees in order to prevent our nation’s exposure to potential harmful risks.

We shouldn’t allow refugees into our country without checking their background information because without doing so, terrorists could unknowingly enter into our country and perform harmful acts. Our country has already faced many heart breaking attacks such as 9/11 where we lost 2,996 people and more than 6,000 people were injured. These kinds of attacks need to be prevented. If the United States begins letting refugees in from other countries without having knowledge about them or what they’re doing, we could be increasing our risk of further terrorist attacks in our country. We want to avoid losing more people into these harmful acts. While many refugees are looking to seek a better life in our country because of the hardships and the fighting going on in theirs, we must not allow those who are posing as refugees to cause harm to the United States.

Many people may argue that we currently have a vetting process that checks all the refugee information before letting them come into our country. However, I believe this process needs to be stronger than it is. According to Adam Kredo, a writer for the Washington Free Beacon, in 2011 two refugees that had gone through the vetting process were living in Kentucky and ended up being found as terrorists. This is just one example of the vetting process having a flaw that could have caused a very bad outcome. These are things we have to avoid and to do that we need to properly inspect these people and fix this process as a whole.

Another reason we should not allow refugees into our country without checking their background information is we need to be able to determine whether or not they are willing to follow and adjust to the laws in our country, since the laws in their countries are very different. It is believed that some of the refugees believe in sharia law. According to discoverthenetworks.org Sharia law means “Islamic Law” and is a detailed system of religious laws developed by Muslims scholars. There are many instances where sharia law goes against the laws of the United States. For example, a husband assaulted his wife and when she asked the judge for a restraining order, the judge had to decline because in sharia law a man is allowed to assault his wife. Currently 16 states have banned Sharia Law, but if we let in a large number of refugees who believe in Sharia Law, how will this affect the legal system and the rules of society going forward?

Finally, we need to check their background information before letting them into the country because we need to see how these people will be able to make a living in our country. We don’t want these people to come into our country and end up unemployed or homeless like so many others in our country. The unemployment rate in our country is already 4.9% as of June 2016. We don’t want these refugees to be unable to find a way to support themselves. If a large number of refugees are let into the country and they are unable to find work, it could cause so many other problems such as US citizens having to be taxed more to help these people. We need to make sure these people will be able to start a new, happy life in our country and not have to rely on the government and its citizens to support them.

Another aspect people may argue is that some of these refugees have no background information at all, so we should let them into our country anyway because they need our help. However, without any information on the people, will we never know what these people are truly up to? We have nothing to confirm whether these people are being truthful on any information they give us. Therefore, we shouldn’t let these people be able to pass the vetting process just because they have none of this background information. These people should be taken in for even more of a check over since there are no documents to confirm any information about these people.

In order to protect our country from harm, we need to check all refugees background information and gain knowledge as to why they truly want to become a United States citizen. By properly vetting the refugees entering our country we can have a greater confidence that we are not allowing more terrorists into our country, and that we aren’t bringing in harm. In addition, proper vetting will ensure that these people are willing to abide by the laws of the United States and give us an idea as to whether or not these people are willing and able to work for a life in this country. Many improvements to the vetting process are necessary to try and eliminate any flaws in the current system and to make sure we are getting the most accurate information available about these refugees. The creation of a better vetting process for all refugees entering the United States will help us detect the true intentions of the refugees and whether or not they are entitled to a life in our the United States of America.

Sincerely,

Haley S.