week 7 Tianxing Sun A02

As I read the "Refugees, Rights, and Race: How Legal Status Shapes Liberian Immigrants’ Relationship with the State," written by Hana Brown, I realized that the illegal immigration problem, or saying the refugees problem in the United States is not as simple as I thought: there are more complex problems other than the simple money and public resources. For example, as Hana Brown wrote in the article, though the state had a high respect to the coming in refugees, the refugees sometime asked for "special right." An instance given by the article was that, refugees would feel that they have lost their loved ones in the war in the former country. This did not have much to do with the United States; however, refugees would think that they have been harmed in it and asked the United States to give them more special care. Another shocking example was that a woman with her three children immigrated to the United States, and her “husband” of unrecognized tribal marriages was left in Libya. She believed that she could not live without her husband; therefore, she asked the US government to apply for a refugee passport to her "husband", so as to get the opportunity to stay in the United States.

I think the biggest problem with Brown's article was that he considers it from the perspective of refugees from beginning to end, and did not think about the huge impact of the large number of refugees entering the United States on the United States itself. Germany’s openness to refugees was a lesson for the United States: Since the outbreak of the refugee crisis, thousands of Middle Eastern refugees have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean and into Europe. With the generosity and uncontrollability of Germany, more and more refugees were attracted and continue to flood into Germany. On the issue of dealing with refugees, Germany first raised the moral banner and finally fell down with no support. It was believed that because the number of refugees is too large, which has caused a serious impact on the social and political structure of Germany. The German people changed their enthusiasm and welcome from the beginning to the conflict and exclusion. The German government was also unable to bear the financial assistance for the refugees to climb year by year, and unable to unload this heavy burden. After the massive sexual assault in Cologne in 2015, sexual abuse, violence, and terrorist attacks appeared in the newspapers. The overwhelming reports on major attacks also plagued the sensitive nerves of the Germans all the time, the sense of security of the German people has fallen to the bottom. However, we can't say that the refugees are bad in a way.

Q: Do we want to employ force to keep them out? Or do we accept them in first, let say feed and house them, then to decide if they can stay or not, based on asylum laws and other possibilities for temporary refugees.










Citations:
Brown, H. (2011). Refugees, Rights, and Race: How Legal Status Shapes Liberian Immigrants' Relationship with the State. Social Problems, 58(1), 144-163.

What Does It Mean to Be a Refugee? Benedetta Berti and Eveliem Borman. Retrieved from http://nsasaunilorin.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-refugee-benedetta-berti-and-evelien-borgman