A Syrian Refugee looks around, afraid but full of hope of the new life they can build for themselves in this new country. Shuddering as they remember the danger and horror they just escaped in the Middle East, they feel glad that they managed to make it out alive. Then a governmental worker from the United States approaches them, telling them that because of their ethnicity, they must go through a long process of interviews before they are considered a citizen. Their hopes fall and they wonder why this is fair treatment for anyone. Isn’t America supposed to be a free country?
Many people from the Middle East are entering America’s borders in hopes of seeking refuge from their terror-filled countries, and citizens of the U.S. have formed very strong opinions over this, making it a controversial issue. Some people are tied to the beliefs that emigrating Syrians will strike terror in this country, but this is almost never true. America is, in fact, a free country where everyone is accepted and should be a great place for terrorized Muslims to take refuge, but recently, this disgustingly hasn’t been the case. This, combined with the nonsensical interrogation process they must go through, provide evidence that Syrian refugees should undoubtedly be allowed to easily enter into in the United States.

America is “the land of the free”, and it purely does not make sense to contradict the country’s deeds with it’s beliefs in forcing Syrian refugees through a long interview process in order to enter into the borders. These people are fleeing from countries where they have endured through unimaginable terrors, and look to America as a safe place where they can get quickly and hide and live freely. Even if a Syrian refugee follows the long interrogation process, they may be faced with a life of anxiety because so many in the country judge them as terrorists. This is very wrong, and, again contradicts with the fact that America is a free, safe country where love should be spread. In order to reaffirm the nation’s positive title, we need to begin not only accepting Muslims into the borders without restrictions, but also accepting them and treating them kindly on a personal level.

Also, the fact that this intense interview process is in place is completely nonsensical. The refugees that are escaping into the country need a safe place to be immediately granted access into, and look to the United States for this. They have suffered and lived in awful, life-threatening conditions prior to coming to the country, and need safety and protection from this as soon as possible. When they come here, however, and are met with multiple restrictions into this free access that they deserve, they are thrown into even more turmoil. In going through this large-scale interview process, they feel judged and continually unsafe. They may not even get to become a citizen, sentencing them to an unfair, horror-filled life on the run where they have no other place to turn to. All of this is merely because of the area of the world they came from, a factor which is very difficult to control.

Some may say that this is for the protection of the country, however out of all of the Syrian refugees flooding to the United States, it is very unlikely that any of them come to this country to cause danger. Simply because they come from an area of terrorism doesn’t mean that they themselves are terrorists, and judging them in this way and making it more difficult for them to enter the country because of it makes their already difficult lives even harder. Terrorists could come from all areas, not only the Middle East, and restricting people from immediately gaining safety here through judging them as terrorists is incredibly wrong and upsetting.

The value that America was once so highly praised for: freedom, needs to be remembered. If freedom and safety were correctly utilized in welcoming scarred refugees into the country, and a shorter, easier interview process was required instead, America would be a much better place. Middle Eastern immigrants that we may know personally must be treated with respect, as well, as many of them have gone through incredibly difficult lives and should be admired, not judged, by Americans who enjoy easy lives every day.