CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE AMERICAN DREAM
By Alex Nowrasteh
Fox News
Feb 2 2011
The current uprising in Egypt is troubling many Christians throughout
the region, but it is not a stand alone incident. Pope Benedict XVI’s
New Year’s message highlighted anti-Christian violence in the Middle
East. French President Nicolas Sarkozy even declared that Christians
there were victims of “religious cleansing.” Mobs have sacked churches
and attacked Christian throughout the region. This is the latest round
of Muslim-on-Christian violence that has been escalating for decades.
A Muslim Brotherhood takeover in Egypt, a distinct possibility,
would be very hostile to the millions of Christians living there.
The pope also noted that many Middle Eastern Christians seek to
emigrate and escape the violence. Sadly, American immigration laws
prevent most Christians from seeking safety in the U.S. Changing our
immigration laws could save many of their lives, and help America, too.
Egypt’s Coptic Christians have borne the brunt of religious violence.
A suicide bomber in Alexandria killed 21 Copts and injured more
than 90 in early January. In Iraq, similar violence against Chaldean
Christians and Catholics has decimated their numbers. Two weeks ago,
an off-duty Egyptian police officer killed a 71 year-old Christian
man and wounded five Christian women. Worryingly, police sometimes
sit idly by as Muslim mobs attack Christians. Political violence in
Egypt might fuel further religious violence.
Anti-Christian violence is not new to the Middle East. The Armenian
genocide, which killed more than 1 million Armenian Christians (perhaps
many more), was heavily motivated by religious strife. Over the last
100 years, sectarian violence throughout the region has sent millions
of refugees streaming across borders.
The United States has a long history of welcoming religious refugees.
The Pilgrims fled the Netherlands to settle in Massachusetts. Irish
Catholics escaped English oppression for the promise of America.
Eastern European Jews increasingly came after violent anti-Semitic
pogroms in the late 19th century drove them out of their homes. Many
Armenians fled genocide and war to settle in California. But then
America changed its immigration laws.
Before 1921, America was the world’s safety net for religious
refugees. But that year, the federal government imposed the nation’s
first immigration quotas removing the last hope for many millions
of people seeking to flee dictatorship, war, and genocide. That
helped create the complicated, dysfunctional, and expensive federal
immigration bureaucracy we know today.
Those restrictions led to the U.S. government’s shameful turning away
of ships full of German Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.
After World War II, the government changed its policies and began
to accept more refugees. But even now, only 80,000 are to be allowed
entry in 2011-including a mere 37,000 from the Middle East and South
Asia. In a real emergency, that quota is too puny.
The burden should be on the government to prove that a refugee
is a threat, not on the refugee to prove his well-founded fear of
persecution. Many persecuted people make it to the U.S. to seek asylum,
but are returned or held in limbo due to legal minutiae. For Iraqi
refugees, court and processing delays range from 12 to 21 months,
affecting about 25,000 refugee seekers according to the advocacy
group Human Rights First. Refugees who are not criminals, suspected
terrorists, or infected with transmittable deadly diseases should be
allowed entry into the U.S. without numerical cap.
Letting today’s refugees resettle in the U.S. is not an act of
charity. Allowing persecuted Christians from Muslim lands to move
here could bolster American intelligence. Middle Eastern Christians
know Arabic and local cultures, skills severely lacking in U.S.
intelligence agencies a decade after 9/11. Arabic is a notoriously
difficult language to learn and the cultural nuances of the Muslim
world often confound Western analysts.
They would also bring large economic benefits. If current Middle
Eastern Christian immigrants are any indicator, refugees from that
part of the world will be entrepreneurial, educated, and willing to
assimilate into American society. Importantly, there is already a
large Middle Eastern Christian community in the U.S. that could help
them adjust. The same applies to religious refugees from China and
North Korea.
Ideally, religious violence against Christians in the Middle East will
cease. If Egypt descends into anarchy or an anti-Christian regime takes
power there, the U.S. should prepare for the worst –especially when
allowing in more victims of religious persecution benefits Americans.
Under today’s refugee rules, the Pilgrims would not be allowed
to settle here because they were relatively unmolested in The
Netherlands. Any law that would deny our forefathers and ancestors
the right to immigrate here needs to be changed.
Alex Nowrasteh is a policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise
Institute
From: A. Papazian
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/02/02/christians-middle-east-american-dream/