What to Do…

Living in Lebanon, where approximately one million Syrian refugees are waiting for an end to the war next door, the humanitarian crisis caused from the conflict in Syria is always on my mind–and how could it not be? In addition to passing Syrian refugees all day long on the streets of Beirut, I also have Syrian refugees as students in my classroom–trying with difficulty to adjust to college life, after having fled from the war zone at home. Even in the playroom at St. Jude’s in Beirut, where I volunteer, a number of the children receiving chemo are Syrian refugees too. In the midst of so much suffering, it’s easy to wonder what more might be done–a question that more people are now asking. This week, Senators and media commentators have been busy proposing how we might lend a helping hand to so many people in need…

The ongoing civil war in Syria has created the world’s worst humanitarian and refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide and perhaps since World War II. Of the nearly 2.3 million Syrian refugees that have fled the bloody civil war, nearly half are children. While the United States has led the world in resettling and providing humanitarian assistance to refugees from conflicts around the globe, we’ve not done enough to address the current Syrian crisis. In particular, the Obama Administration should use the authority Congress gave it to exempt deserving Syrians from the overly broad immigration bars that prevent legitimate refugees from finding safe haven in the United States. While there may be differences about how to resolve the conflict, there should be no disagreement that it is a moral and national security imperative to do all we can to help alleviate the suffering of innocent Syrian refugees.

– Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL),
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights