After listening to the democratic debate last night I thought it would be interesting to look into where the different candidates stand on the migration crisis. In early September the candidates had interviews with MSNBC during which they spoke about the viewpoints of the crisis, whether they think it is a crisis, if they think the U.S. should intervene,etc.
Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley concerns regarding the crisis were made clear when he started a petition in support of the U.S. accepting at least 65,000 refugees in 2016. Other democratic canditates including Clinton and Sanders agree that the United States should do their part to help during the crisis. Hilary stated “We should do our part, as should the Europeans; but this is a broader, global crisis”, suggesting that the crisis is not a problem solvable by one country, that it will take the cooperation of many countries to provide relief for the Syrian refugees. Bernie Sanders takes a similar standpoint as Clinton, he stated “the world has got to respond, the United States should be a part of that response.”. He emphasized that the U.S. should play a role in responding to the crisis but he also acknowledged the importance of other Middle Eastern countries role in providing relief for Syrian refugees.
Republican candidate Donald Trump has a different stand on how much the U.S. should get involved in the migration crisis. He recognizes that the the migration crisis is a problem but he states that “Europe is handling it”. He emphasizes that the U.S. has many issues of its own that need to be addressed, “there’s a huge problem, and we should help as much as possible, but we do have to fix our own country.”. Other republican candidates such as Ben Carson have stated the increasing the number of refugees that the United States accepts would be a safety hazard for our country.
The U.S. candidates have both many similar and yet many differing stand points on the migration crisis. No matter what their stance all candidates must and have acknowledged that 7 million Syrians have been displaced by the war since 2011and from this have chosen to defend their claim for how the U.S. should respond.
The European Migration Crisis 