Keating Out of Step on SAFE Act

Big shout out to Ashley and Grace for having their Op-Ed on Rep. Keating's vote on the SAFE Act published in the Cape Cod Times today!

Keating Out of Step on SAFE Act

By Grace Fernandes and Ashley Benson

At this time of Thanksgiving, a holiday celebrating some of America’s first refugees of religious oppression, we are extremely disappointed by U.S. Rep. William Keating’s Nov. 19 vote to pass H.R. 4038.

We believe this bill, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act (also known as the SAFE Act), will make it harder for refugees to find a haven in our country by requiring the director of the FBI, in unanimous concurrence with the secretary of Homeland Security and the director of National Security, to verify that each refugee poses no threat to our country’s security, in addition to other barriers. Keating’s vote, among the minority of Democrats in the House, does not align itself with his past efforts to aid the victims of conflicts and mass atrocities around the world.

Since 2011, more than 12 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes as a result of a violent civil war. Half are children. Unfortunately, children displaced or orphaned by this conflict are at high risk of malnourishment, abuse and exploitation. They are often forced to quit school because of constant relocation. In this country, we have the opportunity to take in some of those refugee children and provide them with the life and education they would not have otherwise experienced in their wartorn homeland. We are morally obligated to extend our aid to these young victims of conflict and their families, whose only offense was being born into a violent and unstable country. Turning our backs on these people is inhumane and does not represent who we are as a nation. The United States has and should continue to be a beacon for the world’s oppressed.

George Santayana once said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 1939 we as a country turned our backs on the St. Louis, aboard which were 937 passengers, almost all Jewish refugees. The xenophobia of the American people led our government to deny these refugees admittance into our country.

As Americans, we cannot afford to make this same mistake again, or allow fear to control our decisions. After the recent attacks in Paris, France has maintained its commitment to admit refugees from Syria; this is in stark contrast to the further barriers that our representatives wish to raise against refugees. The support shown recently for Paris needs also to be shown for the Syrian refugees experiencing the same unwarranted violence from ISIS and other threats. We must remember that these people are not terrorists, but the ones fleeing terror.

H.R. 4038 caters to the propaganda produced by ISIS in its attempts to recruit potential soldiers, giving extremists incentive to join the movement. We risk sending a message to the millions of displaced Syrians that they are unwelcome; this has the potential to incite anger and resentment toward us as a nation and may encourage lone-wolf extremists to ally themselves with ISIS and increase their strength as an organization.

This bill is counterproductive. To date there are no cases of refugees committing terrorist attacks in this country. We understand the widespread concern for safety, especially in the wake of the recent attacks in Paris. As President George W. Bush stated nine days after the attack of 9/11, “Our enemy is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends.” Syrian refugees, who are fleeing from the very people we stand against, cannot be used as scapegoats following these horrific events.

The recurring argument in defense of this bill is that it will prevent potential terrorists from exploiting the United States Refugee Admissions Program as a means of entrance into the country. This argument fails to take into consideration one very important detail: The current refugee vetting process in the United States is on average an 18- to 24-month process, in addition to the lengthy U.N. process that precedes it. It’s unlikely that potential terrorists will wait two years, subjecting themselves to the most extensive screening process of any foreign travelers to the United States, just to have a chance to gain asylum in this country. H.R. 4038 is fixing a problem that does not exist, and in doing so alienates innocent people who are looking to us for a place of refuge.

Massachusetts has long been a leader in helping those most in need. Gov. Baker’s statement that he is “not interested in accepting refugees from Syria” is inconsistent with who we are as a state.

We hope Sens. Warren and Markey will stand up to this wave of xenophobia and help prevent this bill from advancing, and we hope Rep. Keating will reconsider his support and pledge to uphold the president’s potential veto. We are better than this.

— Grace Fernandes and Ashley Benson are seniors at Monomoy Regional High School in Harwich.

See story at Cape Cod Times here