The Runaway Refugees

        In the world today there are 65.3 million refugees. To put this into perspective, that is more than 8 times the population of New York City, and it is also one out of every 113 people on this earth. These refugees have been seeking a safe haven in other countries for years, but lately after so many countries have been falling apart because of fascism and anarchy governments, these numbers have risen dramatically. Fascism is a government that is ruled by a dictatorship who controls the lives of their citizens who are not at all allowed to disagree with their government. Anarchy government is the total opposite, where there is hardly any government at all and there is no rules or laws. With this lack of a stable government, refugees have become more numerous. The bigger question is what should we do with all of these refugees and should we even let these strangers into our secure United States? I strongly agree with you, Hillary Clinton, when you boldly stated that we need to be allowing these helpless refugees into our loving hands, and we should help these refugees the best we can. This is a serious problem that is only getting worse. We need to fix this fast.

        The main problem we are facing is just how many millions of people are refugees. Euan McKirdy concludes, “Over sixty five million men, women, and children are forcibly displaced worldwide, whom over half are children.” The author’s point of view on this is that there is an extremely large amount of refugees. Clinton proposes that we increase the number of refugees allowed in the U.S., and she also supports Obama’s executive actions that allows four million illegal immigrants that immigrated illegally into the U.S. to not be deported and to continue to stay in America. Rebecca Kaplan further explains this claim when she writes, “Hillary also agrees with Obama by wanting to increase the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. from 10,000, what Obama wanted, to 65,000.” This is a great idea but it is a lot of people; it is a whole 550% more people than Obama suggested. Although this is a lot of people, if it was our country fleeing from our corrupted government, other countries would help us by letting as many of us in their county as need. There are many pros and cons to Mrs. Clinton’s plan. These refugees’ homes are in complete disaster, and we have the responsibility to help them and let them in. If our country didn’t let them in then who would? They would be without a home, a safe place for their children to live and grow up. Although this is a good plan, we have no idea who these people are. Some refugees we have let in have formed gangs and killed many of our people. Clinton has many great ideas about refugees, I just believe we need to have better security checks before we let these people in.

        Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has a totally different outlook on this topic. He believe we should let no refugees in. Several websites verify when you, Mr. Trump,  very opinionatedly stated, “I'll look Syrian children in the face and say they can't come.” How sad would it be to look at a helpless homeless little Syrian refugee child and say no I will not provide a safe place for you to live, even though I am beyond capable of doing so. Trump has drastically different views on refugees than Clinton does. Trump also wants to build a wall separating us from other countries, especially Mexico. This plan has potential, but there are many flaws with it. This wall will be very costly to build and Mr. Trump expects Mexico to pay for it all, like they will be willing to just hand over all the 8 billion dollars. Another idea Trump has is to buy a big “Swatch of land” for a safe zone for all the refugees to live in. This is a great plan and is a good idea. If we can find a place for all the refugees to live, we should look into doing this and maybe someday actually do it. There are also flaws to this plan, for example, security and laws. This would be like starting a whole new country or colony. As we have studied from early America, colonists had many struggles with making America into what it is now. They had famine, hunger problems, and many people died. Although this plan is very brilliant, there still stands many flaws. If we are to get a big chunk of land for these refugees, there need to be serious security. I agree with Trump when he says we could buy the refugees a separate piece of land, but I do not agree with him when he states we should not let refugees into our country.

        Another problem we have with these refugees is the aid we are already supplying for them. They need better aid not just more aid. UN high level on Humanitarian finance emphasizes, “Never before has the world been so generous towards the needs of people affected by conflicts and disasters, and never before has generosity been so insufficient.” In making this comment, Susan Yoshiharas urges us to help these refugees in better ways than what we are right now. Some ways we can help refugees are to open our borders, like Germany did, and let as many refugees live in America as needed. While these refugees are living here, we need to give them humanitarian help and give them food and shelter. We should allow the refugee children to go to school and get jobs, allowing them to rebuild their lives. Other things we can do to help is donate money to refugees, even to other countries helping refugees and also charities that are set up to help refugees. There are many ways to help refugees but one of the best things to do is to allow them to come into our countries and stay here.

        If you were one of these 65.3 million refugees would you want to come to America to start a better life? The answer is quite clear, we all would. We should allow all refugees into our countries and help them the best we can by caring for them and giving them necessities to live. Dr. Seuss said it best when he stated, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” We should treat everyone how we would want to be treated, no matter where they are from or what situation they are in. We are so lucky to live in this beautiful America and we should be willing to do whatever in our power to help out these refugees who are fighting for their lives everyday. I know I am only a high school student, but I will do whatever I can to help these poor refugees. Now, what are you, future president, willing to do?