Let’s not compound the tragedy

We all were horrified by the events in Paris on Friday. But as sad as we are for the French people, it would be a much greater tragedy if we did not learn from history and allowed potentially hundreds of thousands of Syrian, Libyan, Afghan, and Iraqi refugees to die due to our unwillingness to act.

As the old saying goes, “History doesn’t repeat itself; but it does rhyme.” We have seen this story before, numerous times.  During the pogroms, millions of Jewish refugees came from Eastern Europe. But after the Bolshevik Revolution and the Red Scare, Congress effectively sealed the borders and sealed the fates of millions more. Before World War II, restrictive U.S. policies made it impossible for most European Jews to enter the country. Our isolationism cost them their lives.

{mosads}After the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, two refugee crises emerged, both partially caused by our own actions. In Vietnam itself, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese citizens feared reprisals from the forces of the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. The U.S. granted approximately 125,000 Vietnamese refugees sanctuary. At the time, only 36 percent of Americans favored allowing these immigrants into the country: they feared that they would take American jobs and be a drain on the economy. They were also concerned about their political leanings and what it could mean for the country. When they did arrive, they were sent to “assimilation camps” for several months.

Of course, American fears were largely unfounded. These immigrants not only did us absolutely no harm; they became patriotic and valuable members of our society.

The same fate did not await Cambodian refugees.

Our bombings of Cambodia from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s not only killed countless thousands (to this day we do not know the exact number, but most military historians would put it at least 50,000), it also created a power vacuum and motivated some to join the Khmer Rouge. Unfortunately for the innocents of Cambodia, the U.S. did practically nothing to stop the resulting genocide and save the nearly two million people who were murdered. In fact, despite signing the law that allowed Vietnamese refugees to enter, President Ford never even publicly mentioned the genocide in Cambodia and President Carter didn’t do so until April of 1978.

And, of course, there is always the example of Cuba. In 1980, Castro sent 125,000 refugees our way. They were vetted, and no acts of terror occurred. Since then, we have continually accepted Cuban émigrés. There are currently over a million Cuban refugees in the US.

The United States is in a much safer position than European countries when it comes to terrorism: we have oceans between us and ISIS; we have fewer borders to guard; we invest much more in our security and have better security apparatuses; and we have better intelligence services. Still, we will never be completely safe and every action a nation takes on behalf of others always involves some risk. But, despite what some believe, the U.S. actually has extremely adequate vetting processes. In fact, it will take most Syrian refugees years before they’re even allowed to step foot on U.S. soil. And as for economic concerns, it has been clearly shown that large economies like ours are not negatively affected by influxes of refugees.

According to Amnesty International, 220,000 Syrians have already been killed in the civil war, 12.8 million are in need of humanitarian aid, and over half of the Syrian population has been displaced. UNICEF says that 7.5 million of those in need are children. These poor people are not dealing in hypotheticals: this is their reality, and if we do not do something to help, hundreds of thousands of them will die and millions more will remain impoverished.

The truth is, letting in just 10,000 refugees is not nearly enough. Germany, a country with a quarter of our population, is probably going to accept over a million. Are we truly only willing to do just a hundredth of what Germany is willing to do? Is that who we are, or are we “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” as we claim to be? Has the inscription on the Statue of Liberty been changed to read, “Give me your huddled masses, but only when it’s convenient and doesn’t burden me in any way?”

Each time the world is presented with a genocide, we claim that we have learned from it and say that we will never permit it to happen again. How about, just once, we actually mean it?

Rosenfeld is a educator and historian who has done work for Charles Scribner’s, MacMillan, and newsweek.com.