Should we grant asylum to refugees?

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Should we grant asylum to refugees?

Throughout the world people are on the move: a Diaspora of displaced, homeless individuals pushed out of their countries by indiscriminate violence or purposeful persecution. They move across porous, breach able borders. No one knows for certain how many there are. The official figure is set at fourteen million- the unofficial tally edges toward thirty million. Newspapers dispatch daily reports about the violations of their human rights- from Afghanistan, Palestine, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Pawns in a world shaped by superpowers, their lives have been torn apart, injured, crushed.  

My speech today is whether asylum should be granted to refugees?

Many citizens, frustrated in their attempts to leave Eastern bloc countries legally, have been driven to acts of desperation to find refuge abroad. Once their wish to leave becomes known, they become objects of suspicion, considered traitors by many of their colleagues and associates. Under such circumstances it is no wonder they are willing to take considerable risks to change their situations.  

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I, myself, am a tourist of refugee worlds. I was appalled at the conditions these people lived in, the suffering which caused so many family deaths, and sheer disappointment of the children, knowing they have no future…

 The dictionary defines “refugee” as “people who have been forced to leave their country and live elsewhere”.

Refugees are inconvenient. Their concern is not for order, systems, or bureaucracies, nor for the general welfare. Their concern, rather, is for survival- their own and that of their families.

Governments, on the other hand, have competing concerns: the sovereignty of boarders, ...

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