Although Gov. Mike Pence was thinking about the safety of Indiana when he suspended refugee resettlement in Indiana, Middle Eastern students don't share his same belief of the dangers of refugees.
Pence was not alone in making that call. More than half of U.S. governors and several European Union nations also decided to suspend the refugee replacement program until further notice after ISIS attacked six Paris locations on Nov. 13.
"My decision [Nov. 16] that now has apparently been reflected in several dozen states around the country is entirely a result of the FBI director a month ago testifying that we had significant gaps in our ability to adequately confirm the background on people that are participating in the Syrian refugee program," Pence said.
THE POLITICS BEHIND IT
Despite Indiana's "long tradition" of welcoming refugees from Syria and other nations, Pence said gaps in America's ability to confirm the background of Syrian people in the program led him to his decision to suspend it.
"I think in the wake of Paris, that common sense and good judgement suggests that it was proper to suspend this program for Indiana," he said.
After the terrorist attacks on Paris, government leaders have to make the choice to protect their people, Pence said.
But Fahad Aseery, a Saudi Arabian student working toward a doctorate degree in special education, said he thinks America as a whole will suffer from these decisions.
"America has always been a nation that had great policy for accepting immigrants and refugees both," Aseery said. "Many people have dreams, especially in these third-world countries."
By becoming less accepting of people of a certain race or religion, he said America may lose its reputation of being a land of opportunity.
"[Immigrants and refugees] pick America for a reason," Aseery said. "But by doing this to the refugees, it's destroying all of this."
As America continues to keep refugees out, other nations — like Turkey, Canada and Germany, who have all opened their doors to refugees — will have a chance to gain politically while America suffers, Aseery said.
For him, the desire to keep out Syrian refugees is strictly a Republican ideal. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are showing support to maintain the Syrian Resettlement Programs.
However, Yaron Ayalon, a history professor who specializes on the Middle East, disagrees.
"This has nothing to do with conservatism — that implies that these conservatives are racist," Ayalon said. "These are just governors who are taking racist actions endorsed by the state because there's no other way to explain why they would single out an entire group of people."
Ayalon said he believes, as a whole, the nation wants to be welcoming to different people, but they should do proper screening on them as well. However, this should be done with anyone who enters America, not just with Syrians.
"We don't want to close our eyes and not realize where we live," Ayalon said. "We should be careful."
But until improved screening techniques are available, Pence wants the resettlement program to remain suspended so he can have "absolute assurance" that refugees entering America don't pose a threat to citizens.
"This is really specifically about saying that my first obligation is the safety and security of the people of Indiana," Pence said.
But for Aseery, this is still an issue of politics.
"There are so many people that get killed, hurt, and still some other people try to make their own gain politically," Aseery said. "Unfortunately, that's what we see — politics take advantage of people."
THE REFUGEES
Most students don't really know what is going on in the Middle East, Ayalon said. In addition to ISIS, Syrian citizens are living in the midst of civil war and the regime of their current leader, President Bashar al-Assad.
Al-Qaida, the Assad Regime, ISIS and other groups are all "competing entities that don't like one another more than they hate you," Ayalon said.
These entities all want different things. Refugees who find their way out of Syria want to escape them all, Ayalon said.
In a press release about the cease of the resettlement programs across the nation, Kevin Appleby, Director of Migration Policy at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the refugees want the same thing Americans do — to protect their children and be safe.
Saleh Saleh, a graduate student studying information and communication sciences, came to America just more than three months ago. He was born in Kuwait but has lived in many nations, including Yemen, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and India.
While he said he understands the right to keep out Syrian refugees if government leaders choose to, Saleh questioned why the leaders do not want to help them.
"If [Pence] has a chance to help people, why not?" Saleh said. "It's hard enough for the refugees to even enter this country. … They need help."
While Pence and other governors want improved screenings for these refugees before the program can continue, refugees already go through a long process to get here, Lavinia Limon, President and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said in a press release.
“Refugees undergo the most intensive security screening process of any people allowed to enter the U.S.," Limon said. "The average processing time is two years and includes an in-person interview with an Officer of the Department of Homeland Security and continuous security vetting by all U.S. intelligence agencies."
THE LINK TO PARIS ATTACKS
Saleh said he thinks Syrian refugees are being blamed for the Paris attacks because of the passport found at the scene of one of the attacks.
"That doesn't mean all Syrians or all refugees are terrorists," Saleh said. "They don't even know if the passport is real."
Ayalon agrees. The passport was confirmed to be fake — and not belonging to a Syrian refugee — by French officials on Nov. 17.
"ISIS people implanted it there so people would think it was Syrian refugees," Ayalon said.
Because of outspread support for ISIS, Ayalon said he in no way believes the group would send out their supporters to pose as refugees, and to assume they would doesn't fit in with Christian and Jewish ideals of helping those in need.
The beliefs people hold of Syrian refugees come from what prominent media tells them, Ayalon said.
Saleh said he would blame big news stations for America's views and negative thoughts of Muslims, even though he has had no prejudices expressed to him.
"How many Muslims are there in the world? More than one billion," Saleh said. "And how many percent of the one billion are involved with ISIS? We cannot judge one billion for only .005 percent."
Saleh doesn't blame the education in America, but he blames it on the media for not telling the whole truth about Muslims and not showing how they are actually the ones who suffer the most with ISIS.
Terrorism in general is a problem that affects others more than most people know or see, Ayalon said. It's a problem for the Middle East more than for America.
"While it's true that most terrorism America has seen has come from Muslims, most [terrorism] is toward Muslims," Ayalon said. "Iraq and Afghanistan alone constitute half of all terrorism today."
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