On September 19th, Donald Trump Jr., Donald Trump's oldest son, posted a tweet on twitter that compared Syrian refugees to a bowl of skittles. With a picture that said "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem," he continued and then said:
This image says it all. Let's end the politically correct agenda that doesn't put America first. #trump2016.
Trump Jr.'s analogy is not only inappropriate and dehumanizing, which compares millions of suffering humans fleeing a civil war in Syria to cold inanimate poisoned candies, but also completely erroneous, which over-exaggerate the risk of admitting refugees into the United States. According to Trump Jr., if just three skittles in a bowl of handful could kill a person, then of course admitting thousands or even millions of Syrian refugees into the United States would be very risky.
However, The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, once released a statement that said:
The chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year.
The chance is so small that it can be considered statistically insignificant. Moreover, the risk of an American being murdered by a refugee is significantly lower than the risk of a car occupant dying in a car accident, which is 1 in 47,718 in 2013 published by insurance information institute. I suspect that Trump Jr. would use same logic and think that cars are so dangerous that he would never sit in a car.
As a international student studying in the US, I am deeply disturbed by Donald Trump Jr.'s message to the American people. His message, much like his father's rhetoric, insinuates that accepting refugees would be end of America, appealing to and exploiting xenophobia sentiments in America. I understand that America has rights to choose potential migrants. However, Trump Jr.'s statement is based on his prejudice against refugees and his intent of fear-mongering.
There are millions of Syrian immigrants living in the United States. Many of them are successful people like Steve Jobs, who is the son of a Syrian immigrant. If it hadn't been for Syrian immigrants, America wouldn't be home to Jobs, who probably created the iPhone or the MacBook for Trump Jr. to post that Anti-Syrian refugee tweet.
