Have you heard much about the refugee situation lately? Remember how Kerry was planning for something like 100k refugees this year alone. Any updates? As it happens, there are some things we have learned along the way.
We’ve already brought you stories about communities overburdened by the complications of integrating so many people from very different parts of the world. Differences in language and culture being a large part of it, but the more practical aspects as well.
Let’s consider a country already implementing large-scale influxes of refugees. Not in Europe, but closer to home. In Canada, newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken his zeal for refugee absorption to absurd levels. Elected mid October, he campaigned on a promise to bring 25,000 to Canadian soil by Dec 31, 2015. That number will be larger again in 2016. (Note: Canada is roughly 1/10th the population of USA.)
He dismissed concerns about logistics, screening, integration, cost and even whether this was the best kind of help to offer.
We have learned about Motive.
At the conclusion of an interview with the NY Times he sheds a lot of light on why this is such a key issue for him. And since he is an ideological twin of the American Progressive movements, it is worth asking how many American politicians share these reasons.
Trudeau doubled down on the Progressive multi-culti nightmare with the following statement: “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada. There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first postnational state.”
Post-national state. Does this accurately depict the anti-patriotic stands of some of America’s own politicians? Because he believes there is no core Canadian identity, he assumes a massive influx of foreigners logically cannot corrode or distort our identity. He’s a “Citizen of the World.”
But such utopian fantasies have a way of crashing down to earth when it comes time to implement them. Remember how he led the way internationally on the refugee front? Photo-ops of him meeting personally with refugees as they arrive in Canada.
We have learned about logistics.
The goal of fast-tracking 25,000 by Jan 1 stalled out over logistics. It was closer to 1600. Since then, the numbers have ramped up. But several cities have asked Trudeau to stop sending people until they can get the logistics worked out. They just can’t keep up.
Refugees are staying in hotels for weeks at a time while people try to figure out where to put everyone. With language barriers at the hotels, they feel like prisoners. Their kids can’t go anywhere. They are strangers in a land they do not understand.
The government is now turning to private sponsor groups — the kind I and others like me described long before this fool’s errand — as a more sensible way to bring in a refugee family in such cases as was warranted. Groups are voluntarily offering a home, food, clothing, support network, and are more likely to help a newcomer become integrated into the host nation than just recreating the broken culture from back home in their new neighborhood.
Big government is tactily admitting that it actually sucks at helping people, and is turning to the far better option of the kindness of individuals. As most charity efforts OUGHT to be handled in the first place.But that might be too little, too late.
We have learned about the experiences of the refugees themselves.
Amid the language barrier, culture shock, and being held in hotels with their families and young children so far from everything they know and understand, these refugees are making a shocking admission.
As bad as they thought the camps were, some have publicly stated they would like to go back.
Because it doesn’t take a genius to understand that helping someone in their own culture and context — wherever possible — is both a better use of charitable dollars, and an easier adjustment for those being helped. But it just might take someone not blinded by their own sense of moral superiority.
