Fallout From Paris Attacks Lands on Syrian Refugees
Politicians around the globe want to start tightening border policies.
LONDON— -- The verbal fallout from Friday’s deadly attack in Paris has landed squarely on Syrian refugees, who’ve become the target of condemnation around the globe.
After the death of at least 129 people, some politicians and community leaders everywhere have become even more critical of open-door policies geared toward refugees and economic migrants.
In Europe, for instance, Konrad Szymanski, Poland's new European affairs minister, said, "We'll accept [refugees only] if we have security guarantees. This is a key condition, and today a question mark has been put next to it all around Europe.”
Marie Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Front Party in France, called for the closing of mosques and expelling of "radical imams" over Twitter this weekend.
Sweden had started a stricter border-control policy one day before the attacks in Paris, instituting checks and not allowing people to pass through without permitted documentation. France reinstated border controls Friday night, which has started speculation that others will follow suit.
With a harsh winter approaching, Kirk Day, International Rescue Committee's emergency field coordinator, fears there will be a backlog of refugees on the Mediterranean route if countries close their borders or start a more stringent screening process.
"The countries may be incapable of accommodating [the refugees] in a humane way," he told ABC News.
German Prime Minister Angela Merkel took the brunt of heat from right-wing politicians in her country. Germany has been the most welcoming of refugees and migrants, accepting the majority of the more than 800,000 refugees and migrants who have made their way across the Mediterranean.
In the German state of Bavaria, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic party, Markus Soder, tweeted, “#Paris Attacks changes everything. We cannot allow illegal and uncontrolled immigration.”
But Germany’s interior minister urged the public and politicians to be mindful of the large number of attacks on asylum seekers and shelters. “People need to consider their words,” Thomas de Maiziere said. “They shouldn't put this in any relation to what we are now experiencing in the area of terrorism.”
Alabama and Michigan this weekend joined the ranks of Europe’s skittish politicians and said their states would attempt to block Syrian refugees in any U.S. relocation program. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley Sunday said, “I will not stand complicit to a policy that places the citizens of Alabama in harm’s way.”
Though the anti-refugee sentiment has heightened, it’s unclear whether that has translated to changes on the ground at shelters in the European Union. The United Nation’s Refugee Agency declined to comment on whether they have noticed a difference in treatment.
Omar Harjou, a refugee from Kobani, Syria who now lives in a facility in Solingen, Germany, said, “[Shelter staff] tell us, ‘Don’t worry, nothing will change.’”
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