Refugees are people too

Lately there has been a negative stigma around refugees. This comes from a lack of knowledge we have as a community.

A lot of people think refugees are terrorists, when in reality they are just people trying to survive. After refugees flee their country, they go through countless years in refugee camps with standards just above survival. It takes multiple years of paperwork and screening to just get into the United States. With all of that only one in every 500 refugees were resettled in 2018.

Then for the refugees that get settled into the U.S. we turn our backs to them instead of accepting them with open arms. In the past year the restrictions on refugees are becoming tighter, causing it to be harder for the people who need safety to get resettled. Refugees are the nicest and most accepting people I have met, and yet they have the most brutal and scary stories that I have ever heard.

It is about time for us as a community to start accepting refugees with open arms, instead of turning our backs on them. Now is the time to treat refugees as people, because they are just like us.

Taylor Mularski

Spokane