Moriah Smith,9th Period

This article addresses the recent flood of Syrian, Iranian, and Afghan refugees coming to Europe and America. The EU must accept 200,000 refugees and the United States has agreed to take 2,000. But a group of democratic senators are urging Obama to accept 65,000.

Although these countries seem up to the challenge, there has been some negative feedback, and some countries think that the United States is not doing enough to help refugees. Another small minority believe that the U.S. should accept fewer refugees, and that safety protocols, such as vetting would be too time consuming and cost prohibitive.

The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said "…. many of them (Muslims from Syria), will change the Christian character of Europe.” He says he wants to police the EU's borders.  These comments may be the reason a train headed to Austria was stopped in Budapest. According to reports, officials were waiting to take the refugees to a nearby camp instead of allowing them to travel to Austria. This started a protest and many refugees went on a hunger strike. Some even began walking to the border. Hungarian busses finally arrived to take the refuges to Austria.

I think it will be interesting to see how Europe handles this many people coming in all at once. Will there be overpopulation issues? Will there be more negative feedback? This is very similar to the refugee problem after WW II. Europe had 250,000 displaced people and the US had to step in to take in European refugees. Human decency dictates us to set aside our differences so we can help displaced people.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/04/437468267/u-n-calls-on-european-union-to-accept-200-000-refugees

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/03/hungary-train-diverts-refugees-back-to-camp