Editorial Cartoons & Immigration 

Since 2011, the country of Syria has been engaged in civil war.  War is an ugly thing and destroys lives, countries, and in the case of Syria, it has also eliminated the possibility for Syrians to wade out the war in their own homes. What makes this crisis difficult is finding a place for these refugees to go.  They are fleeing to nearby countries in search of a new life, a life without war.  But just leaving their country and entering another has not been easy. According to recent statistics, “More than 11 million people are displaced, thus far- and the increasingly dire impact on neighboring countries can seem too overwhelming to understand” (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, 2015). Countries like Lebanon have received more than a million refugees, but are calling to the rest of the world for help due to the fact that they are not able to offer support for so many people.  “The U.N. estimates that 7.6 million people are internally displaced.  When you also consider refugees, more than half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is in need of urgent humanitarian assistance, whether they still remain in the country or have escaped across the border” (Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey).  With the war still raging, more Syrians are going to be forced to flee like many others have already done. Countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Iraq are calling for some intervention from further advanced countries like the U.S.  President Obama recently told his administration to receive at the minimum ten thousand homeless Syrians within the next year. But with terrorists groups thriving in Syria, many Americans along with members of other countries feel uneasy about letting so many Syrians enter their country, fearing it will be like opening our doors to terrorists looking to cause harm.  This is what has made this crisis so complicated and so difficult to solve.