With the current presidential debates taking place, it seems that many questions and arguments have been raised concerning Syria and its refugees, especially in terms of whether or not we should provide shelter to them. Many have raised concerns that by allowing refugees into our borders we would be allowing potential terrorists into our homeland, claiming it presents a clear and imminent danger to us as citizens and our country as a whole. The expression, "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch," has been used as an argument and a metaphor for why we should not allow Syrian refugees into our borders.

This prevailing idea that treating all Syrian refugees like terrorists is acceptable to maintain our safety is quite comparable to the events that took place in World War II concerning Japanese-American citizens. Americans took our citizens of Japanese origin, and put them in containment camps for extended period of time; these camps were called "relocation centers" to avoid the stigma of the concentration camps that the Germans were using overseas to contain the Jews. We took an innocent group of our own people and labeled them as a threat to our country based on their heritage and skin color. We look back and consider this a horrendous act of racism and hate, yet we still continue to treat the beaten down citizens of other countries this way today.

The definition of refugee as according to Google.com is "a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster". This may help us understand the situation of those who are coming to us requesting a safe haven: they are not people leaving in search of a better life or personal gain; these people are coming to us empty handed and oppressed, with nothing to offer and nothing to lose. They ask nothing of us but a safe haven. Their land is plagued with war and they are innocent souls in search of safety from an oppressive and, I think we can all agree, evil power. So is it not only fair to think that in an event of extreme distress or terrorism, we as a nation could count on the other countries to hold us up in that time of need and accept our refugees?

These people are oppressed by the same group of terrorists that the American people live in fear of, and they need a safe haven just as strong as the safe haven we get to live in on a daily basis.

I urge you to consider this thought, to dwell on it, and rather than making a snap decision of preferred social or political bias, to ask yourself how you feel about keeping the beaten and oppressed out of our country based on a fear of the very thing that they face on a daily basis.