We can't save them all — but that's no reason to abandon refugees

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18 hours ago

At a holiday dinner in 2016, I sat across from a man I had known and held in high esteem for many years.
He was smart, energetic and charismatic. He had worked hard to achieve lofty goals. He was a devoted son, husband and father. We both considered ourselves practicing Catholics. He knew that I had spent the bulk of my working life as a physician in rural Africa and that I was working now in the U.S. with newly arrived refugees from war-torn countries.
He disapproved of the latter — not, I think, that I was working with refugees, but that the U.S. was admitting them in the first place.
His reasoning was simple: 'We can't save them all.'
Before this moment it had not occurred to me that any American would object to our country accepting our share of the world's tired, poor and huddled masses. They were who made America and then made it great. They were the people we as a gilded nation professed to welcome and value.
I thought at first that he was joking. It was a turn of phrase, an admission that there was much to be done and that doing it was not easy.
But he was not joking. He was serious, and he held his ground, silently daring me to respond.
I could not, of course, except to agree. We can't save them all, I concurred.
But did this mean we should not save any?
Baseball players can't score in every game. But they try, and the best ones score in some. Swimmers sometimes drown, but lifeguards don't stop trying to rescue the floundering. Forests burn, but surely it is worth protecting those that don't. Patients die. Unable to save them all, should doctors stop treating the living?
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As individuals who have been forced to flee their country due to persecution, refugees belong to a narrowly defined class of legal immigrants. Becoming a refugee is a difficult decision of last resort, taken when all other options for staying safe have been exhausted.
The family trees of most Americans are replete with people who fled persecution and oppression, and bipartisan support for the welcoming of refugees has been the norm throughout American history. This is only logical, for to reject the moral duty of the world's richest, most formidable country to help the world's most vulnerable, desperate, voiceless people — especially when it is within the wealthy country's power to do so painlessly — is to shirk a fundamental responsibility of leadership.
Some Americans counter that welcoming refugees is not so painless. They worry that the cost is unaffordable, that the introduction of people whose skin color is different from theirs or who worship differently or dress differently from them might unravel the cultural fabric of established communities, or that refugee resettlement leads to increased crime and disease.
These myths have been debunked repeatedly by both government and independent researchers. Far from being terrorists, criminals or exporters of disease, refugees are among the most thoroughly vetted and medically screened foreigners to enter the U.S. They bring billions of dollars in net fiscal benefit to our country.
Refugees work primarily in vital sectors of society, including every level of our health care system and food supply chain. Their presence in communities has been correlated time and again with decreased crime. Refugees teach us about the world — and, in doing so, they teach us about ourselves. If we are honest, we will admit that we still have a great deal to learn about both.
The suspension of the Refugee Admissions Program, harmful to our country and unworthy of the American people, should be reversed so that the world's most victimized might again be allowed to seek safe harbor here.
Dr. Ellen Einterz is an Indianapolis physician who has worked with refugees in Indiana and abroad for 35 years. She is author of, "Life and Death in Kolofata: An American Doctor in Africa" (Indiana University Press).
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why America should welcome refugees despite the myths | Opinion