That is actually a great idea jazzy mom.
You might have reason to think what you are. ISIS told the world of such a plan 8 months ago.
You are conflating assimilation and national allegiance. Assimilation is not a substitute for national allegiance. And, in wartime, national allegiance is paramount.
Interesting too you use a war to try and prove your point re peaceful assimilation. By definition, war strengthens national allegiances and draws lines between peoples. Assimilation is an after-thought when bullets are flying.
Hungary had a sorted history with Germany during the war. First, Hungary helped Germany, and thus followed many of the anti-Jewish measures, which were directed at Hungarian Jews. No different than what Hitler was doing with German Jews. Then, Hungary wanted its own peace agreement when it saw Germany was losing the war, i.e., essentially, Hungary wanted out of being a german war accomplice. Hungary declared war on Germany in stark reversal of its support of the Axis powers. Germany then occupied Hungary for the rest of the war to prevent Hungary from pulling of its resources. War-time friends were now enemies.
Well, obviously, Germans in Hungary, no matter their level of assimilation, were not well-liked after the war declaration and following occupying action. Overall, very few countries wanted Germans in their mists after the War.
Therefore, after a divisive war, it is stretching it incredibly far to expect peaceful co-existence via assimilation with the prior actions of a war declaration and an occupying Germany.
National allegiance trumps assimilation any day of the week, especially during and after a war. Therefore, Hungarians wanted nothing to do with Germans in their country after occupation; cannot blame Hungarians for that reaction no matter how assimilated the remaining Germans were.
After they cross an ocean, they’re not immigrants any more. Those are called immigrants. Let’s see how many ever actually return to Syria after the war is over.
Sure, 10K is a drop in the bucket. But it doesn’t make sense for the US to even take a drop. Syria is half-way across the world. The idea behind taking in refugees is that they need to temporarily leave the country to the nearest stable area, and then they’ll return when the situation has stabilized in their home country. If we take Syrians they’re not going to be refugees, they’re going to be immigrants. If we want to take 10,000 Syrian immigrants that’s fine, but calling them refugees is total nonsense.
Immigrants with Refugees status in the US have direct path to Green Card and Citizenship. They do not have to come back.
By the way the majority of migrants do not fit the definition of Refugees. If US strictly follows the definition they would admit mostly non-Muslims. But US usually admits using wider definitions so it will probably be “any Syrian”
A refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
@Vladenschlutte, I was responding to a post that said that if the KSA took refugees, the US wouldn’t have to take 10K. I was questioning the logic that the 2 have anything to do with each other. Whether the US should take in any Syrian refugees is another question.
And some countries take refugees with the understanding that they don’t have a homeland to go back to. For instance, the US didn’t take in Hmong and Vietnamese boat people with the understanding that they would ever go back, considering that they would be persecuted if they did. Yet they were still refugees (escaping the Communist regime there).
I think we should take care to not specifically indict Hungary for the expulsion of Germans. Of the ones that didn’t flee, the advancing Soviet armies grabbed many for forced labor and the Potsdam agreement dictated the removal (repatriation) to Germany of many of the rest.
Yep, there was ethnic cleaning of first Jews and Roma and then ethnic Germans throughout Eastern Europe during WWII and after.
I’ve been somewhat annoyed by the presentation of this on the news. The issue of “camps” is presented as though this were WWII and these people need to be deathly afraid of such inhuman treatment. But that’s what we do with people who come to this country illegally. In fact, a court just ordered the release of children held in detainment facilities in the US. So on the one hand our TV news is presenting this heart-rending inhumanity by Europeans while we are locking families and kids in camps.
I don’t expect consistency or honesty so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s nearly always about “selling papers” or “attracting eyeballs” or whatever cliché one wants and the substance isn’t as important as the imagery, as the story being sold.
I strongly dislike the label “refugee” for such people.
I’m not anti-immigration, but I like to call immigrants “immigrants,” not “refugees.”
@Vladenschlutte, ever looked up the definition of the term “refugee”? They are people forced to leave their home because of man-made or natural disasters or persecution. People seeking refuge. Nothing about going back.
Someone can be both a refugee and an immigrant. It’s not either/or.
Well I will be on the “front lines” of all this soon. My husband and I are taking my mother’s ashes back to Hungary for burial next week. From what I’ve gathered I have family on both sides of this issue. Some decry the perceived lack of empathy on the Hungarians’ part and others are scared of the influx of migrants that do not want to be in the country but are stymied by EU laws.
As far as the expulsion of ethnic Germans after WWII I have family on both sides of that as well. We are mostly ethnically German and were settled into Hungary during the reign of Maria Theresa. According to my mother, after the war they had to fill out paperwork on which they had to state their mother tongue; if you put German you were deported. So some of the family ended up in Germany and others stayed in Hungary. After the Russians came in everyone envied the ones who had put down German.
Experts don’t seem to think ISIS fighters will pose as refugees.
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-europe-refugees-security-20150913-story.html
Hum… the same experts who never saw ISIS coming, and who were fine with a world leader calling ISIS “the JV team?” Why are these experts correct now?
I can’t think of a single rational reason why they wouldn’t pose as refugees.
Even experts disagree. Ask the Fed.
I get the feeling people don’t open the link let alone read. Here’s some quotes.
and
It makes sense to me.
I opened it and then realized it was the latimes. It makes sense to me that ISIS will not let this crisis go to waste.
Wow, this makes a mockery of the whole idea of ISIS posing as refugees. It is already so easy for them to infiltrate, why bother to pretend to be refugees!
Also, why do the “experts” think entering as a refugee involves a “convoluted scheme?” Aren’t the refugees simply walking across borders or debarking trains with no identification? What is convoluted about that?