- While Trump’s strategy is known, even Hillary is unlikely to take a bold stand against people screaming about terrorist sleeper cells if doing so undercuts her agenda
Gulf News
Gordon Robison
According to the Associated Press, the United States will reach its goal of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in America by the end of September — a month (more or less) ahead of schedule.
One can see this as an accomplishment: Something that US President Barack Obama’s administration achieved in the face of opposition that was often driven by fear and bigotry. At the same time, one can also see it as nothing to be proud of: 10,000 refugees is a painfully small number compared to what European and Middle Eastern countries are struggling to cope with — and miniscule in terms of the broader Syrian refugee crisis.
Yet an even more difficult question remains to be answered: What will happen after November’s presidential election in the US? Obviously, if Republican nominee Donald Trump wins, it is likely that the US will simply stop taking in refugees — not just from Syria, but from the rest of the world as well.
But it is fair to ask whether things will be much better with Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton in the White House, at least where Syrians are concerned? Given what the politics of immigration is in America these days, will Hillary carry forward even the limited refugee policy of the Obama administration? Will she even try?
Hillary’s website offers detailed position summaries on more than three dozen issues from America’s tax system to rights for the disabled to the survival of family farms. The list contains no issue paper specifically on Syria, though, and the only reference to refugees that I could find was the following sentence: “Hillary will focus on detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety and ensure refugees who seek asylum in the US have a fair chance to tell their stories.”
The structure of that sentence is important because read in the context of American politics, it is concerned almost entirely with people coming to the US from Latin America. The key phrase is “detaining and deporting” — something that obviously happens to people caught illegally in or entering the US and which is clearly not the case with people stuck in a refugee camp in Lebanon or Turkey.
Skating around the issue
The most charitable interpretation of this is that Hillary wants to be at least as open as the Obama administration has been to people fleeing Syria, but is reluctant to say so. Amid America’s current climate of fear and paranoia surrounding immigration in general and immigration from the Middle East in particular, there are few votes to be won on this issue and, potentially, many to be lost.
When the Obama administration announced its extremely modest 10,000 refugees goal late last year, the backlash in many parts of the country was furious, with mayors and governors demanding that none of the refugees be resettled in their cities or states (something that state and local officials, in fact, have no control over) for fear that terrorists might be hiding amongst them. The fact that the US has some of the strictest refugee vetting criteria on earth was regularly mentioned in the media — and just as regularly ignored by politicians of both parties.
What makes this worse is that Hillary, by skating around the issue, is implicitly validating Trump’s false accusation that she favours completely open borders. — a charge Trump makes in pretty much every speech and that both Hillary and the media rarely bother to correct. One may argue that few people can seriously believe Hillary really intends simply to throw open America’s borders — or few, at least, who were ever going to vote for her anyway. But looking towards 2017 and a possible Hillary administration, Trump’s accusations and Hillary’s avoidance of the issue may be setting America up to harden its heart on Syrian refugees.
This is because a victorious Hillary will face neither the scorched-earth approach to politics of the Obama-era Republican Party nor the constant search for scandals real and imagined that dogged her husband’s presidency. She will face both. A a post-Trump GOP may or may not rethink the racism, misogyny and white nationalism driving this year’s campaign, but it will surely be able to come together around the cause of opposition to Hillary.
In such a situation, will Hillary be willing to spend her precious store of political capital on Syria? It seems highly unlikely. It is not that she lacks compassion, but governing is about making hard choices. Syria is a moral and humanitarian disaster, but it does not impact the daily lives of very many Americans. She won’t pander to voters’ fears — but it is hard to see her taking a bold stand against people screaming about terrorist sleeper cells if doing so undercuts support for her broader political agenda.
That is a harsh assessment, but probably a realistic one. Far too many Americans look at Syrian refugees today and see only potential terrorists. Sadly, that is unlikely to change, regardless of who moves into the White House next January. More US aid may head to the camps, but few refugees will be heading to safety in America.
