According to this article, America has a long history of shunning refugees. Do you believe this to be true? What are your thoughts?

MSgt Curtis Ellis — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 08:42:49 -0500

"It wasn’t always that way. Since 1975, America has accepted 1.69 million refugees under Republican presidents, and 1.56 million under Democratic ones, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants."

An interesting read. What are your thoughts about the article below?

SAN FRANCISCO (Tribune News Service) — Unlike more than half of the nation’s governors, California Gov. Jerry Brown is welcoming Syrian refugees to his state. But Brown sounded a lot different 40 years ago, when thousands of refugees from the Vietnam War were headed to California during his first term in office.

Then, Brown tried to prevent planes carrying refugees from landing at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield. His team told Julia Taft, the federal official trying to resettle the refugees, that California had “had too many Hispanics, too many people on welfare,” Taft recalled years later.

“We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here,” Brown said in 1975.

His words sounded like those of many Americans when confronted with a wave of refugees. And they mirror those of today’s politicians pushing to keep Syrian refugees out of the U.S. in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. While early reports said a Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the attackers, now top European Union officials say all of the terrorists were European Union citizens.

But that bit of evidence hasn’t stopped the knee-jerk xenophobia. America fancies itself as a nation of immigrants, but when it comes to refugees, we are a nation of NIMBYs (an acronym for the phrase "Not In My Back Yard").

Just two months ago, in September, the nation was riveted by the image of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old who drowned off the Greek coast during his struggle to escape his dangerous Syrian homeland. This week, some of the leading Republican presidential candidates said they only want to consider accepting Christian Syrian refugees.

Forget what is written on the Statue of Liberty. Polls from the last century have shown the American public is traditionally hostile toward allowing refugees into the land of immigrants.

Not during the Holocaust — 67 percent of Americans opposed a government plan to accept 10,000 European orphans into the U.S. in 1939.

Not after it — a 1946 Gallup Poll found 59 percent of Americans disapproved of a plan to accept Jews and others displaced after the war.

Not when Eastern Europeans fled Communism in the 1950s — when a plurality opposed President Dwight Eisenhower’s plan to accept 240,000 people fleeing communist takeovers of their countries.

Not for the Haitians and Iraqis more recently.

The only difference now is that that those feelings are largely divided along partisan lines; nearly all of the governors who want to keep Syrian refugees out are Republicans, as are most of those in Congress.

It wasn’t always that way. Since 1975, America has accepted 1.69 million refugees under Republican presidents, and 1.56 million under Democratic ones, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

“It’s always been a bipartisan issue — now suddenly it’s a partisan issue,” said Lavinia Limon, president and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, who has been working on refugee issues since 1975.

“This is the typical scenario. The new group comes in. Nobody likes them. They’re vilified. Then over time, we move onto the next group to vilify,” said Limon, who first began working with refugees in California’s Camp Pendleton during the wave of Vietnamese immigrants.

On Tuesday, leading House Republicans proposed that President Obama’s plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees be “paused.” Refugees could be admitted only if the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the director of National Intelligence unanimously “certify to Congress that each refugee is not a security threat.”

It’s an upgrade from Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz only wanting to accept Christian Syrians. Or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another distant White House hopeful, promising to bar even 3-year-old Syrian refugees from American shores.

It’s easy to see why politicians pander.

Back in 1975, 62 percent of the respondents to a Harris Survey said they were afraid that Vietnamese immigrants would take their jobs. Then, a first-term Gov. Brown agreed with them. Today, a fourth-term Gov. Brown is welcoming Syrian refugees.

“Maybe Jerry Brown got wiser with age,” Limon said. “But he’s seen that’s what happens all the time with newcomers. Given half an opportunity, they assimilate.”

It’s a process Limon has watched among wave after wave of migrants.

“By the second or third generation, nobody speaks the language of their grandfather,” she said. “All they have to remember them by is their goulash recipe.”

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America's long history of shunning refugees

America fancies itself as a nation of immigrants, but when it comes to refugees, we are a nation of NIMBYs.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 19 at 2015 9:01 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:01:20 -0500

MSgt Curtis Ellis While I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of children, for what reason would adults be "sitting round formulating plans for how they are going to get out of Hungary without registering themselves with the authorities" Big Red Flag?
Anyone have insight as to a reasonable reason they would want to evade registering?

Sleeping on the ground in Horgos, Serbia

It is after midnight when Ahmed falls asleep in the grass. The adults are still sitting around, formulating plans for how they are going to get out of Hungary without registering themselves with the authorities. Ahmed is 6 years old and carries his own bag over the long stretches that his family walks by foot. "He is brave and only cries sometimes in the evenings," says his uncle, who has taken care of Ahmed after the boy's father was killed in their hometown of Deir

SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" et al

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 19 at 2015 9:18 AM

PO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 09:18:12 -0500

Yes and No. We did send a whole ship of Jew back to death back in WW2. :)

Response by CPT Jack Durish made Nov 19 at 2015 11:13 AM

CPT Jack Durish — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 11:13:59 -0500

This is all very interesting but what does it have to do with today's situation? Yes, there are refugees displaced by the civil war in Syria, but are they the real issue here? We see heart-rending images of them - a little boy purportedly drowned and lying face down on a beach. (Purportedly? Sorry, I have grown cynical. Remember the Palestinian boy purportedly shot by IDF members while he and his father were "caught in a firefight"?) Then I see video and hear testimony of encounters with columns of virile young men (no women or children in their midst) streaming across borders of Europe. And what do they do when they arrive? They make demands. They insist that Europeans abandon their cultural traditions so as to not give offense to these newcomers. Oktoberfest? Stop it! Christian icons in Christian churches providing shelter? Dismantle them! And let's not ignore the personal assaults on Europeans. Women battered and raped as they are proclaimed whores. Violent attacks in Paris. Are these refugees or invaders? Also, why is most of this "news" suppressed by the "news media"? Is it any wonder that there are many thoughtful and compassionate people in the United States questioning the "wisdom" of importing the invaders here?

Response by MSgt Daniel Attilio made Nov 19 at 2015 11:29 AM

MSgt Daniel Attilio — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 11:29:05 -0500

Stars and Stripes recently published a similar article making comparisons.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/what-americans-thought-of-jewish-refugees-on-the-eve-of-world-war-ii-1.379333

What Americans thought of Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II

A poll published in Fortune magazine in July 1938 showed fewer than 5 percent of Americans believed the United States should raise its immigration quotas or encourage political refugees fleeing the fascist states in Europe to voyage across the Atlantic.

Response by SGT William Howell made Nov 20 at 2015 6:37 AM

SGT William Howell — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 06:37:33 -0500

The French and British have opened there door to everyone. How's that working for them?