What Moral Responsibilities (if Any) do We Have to Take In Refugees?

What moral responsibilities, if any, do those of us in wealthy countries have to accept new immigrants from less-developed nations? 

Specifically, should we make distinctions for political refugees versus those who immigrate entirely because of greater economic opportunities on the opposite side of the border?  And to be even more specific, what about stateless refugees from war-torn areas, or those facing severe persecution back at home?  What if an undocumented immigrant is fleeing a life-or-death crisis?  What about religions and ethnic conflicts such as Sunnis fleeing Shias, or Shias fleeing Sunnis?  Under any circumstances should illegals be forcibly returned to their homeland, and if so, when and where?

These are critically important questions facing many, mostly Western nations right now, with no easy answers.

Earlier this week, a truck carrying mostly Syrian refugees was found abandoned along a roadside near the Austria-Hungary border.  When police opened up the cargo hold, they found 71 dead bodies locked inside.  All of the victims had suffocated.  Apparently, most had sacrificed everything they had in order to flee the civil war in Syria happening right now.  Utterly desperate, they boarded a cargo truck and didn’t even know where they were headed.  As it turned out, smugglers feared being caught when the truck experienced some kind of mechanical failure and left the truck on the side of the road where it sat in 90-degree temperatures for more than two days while the passengers inside endured a torturous and ultimately deadly fate.

Syria is just one of many places that have spawned a serious refugee crisis.  Consider similar circumstances in Libya, right now.  Makeshift vessels sailing from North Africa have capsized in open waters while crossing the Mediterranean, many carrying Libyan refugees who hoped to immigrate (illegally) to Italy and begin a new life.  Thousands are estimated to have drowned in countless boating disasters since troubles began in Libya after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Such tragedies aren’t just rare, nowadays.  They become all too common.

Closer to home, some of the most notable refugee catastrophes have included the so-called “boat people” of the late 1970s, who fled the communist takeover of South Vietnam.  Most of these brave and desperate souls eventually made it to American shores.  However, many thousands are estimated to have perished in the choppy South China Sea when storms capsized the boats or other maritime disasters occurred.  Then, where were the Cuban refugees, many allegedly released from Cuban jails, who made the perilous 90-mile journey by boat to Florida during the early 1980s.  Many Cubans made it to American shores, but many did not.  Then, we shall not forget the terrible tragedy of St. Louis, which was carrying 900 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and docked on American shores in 1939, only to be turned away.  Unable to find a nation to accept the refugees, the St. Louis returned to Germany and most of those aboard ended up perishing in the Holocaust.

Such a moment of national shame, I argue — particularly for a country which purports to be “a nation of immigrants” — does indeed give us moral responsibilities to do what we can today for others not as fortunate.  We can’t go back and save all those who ended up in gas chambers.  But we certainly can help many of those who are the most desperate now in various parts of the world and need a helping hand to cross the sea or transgress a border.

The question then becomes — who deserves top priority?  Moreover, should we make distinctions between the victims?  Sure, it’s easy to look back now and realize the moral failure of Western democracies in refusing to accept Jews during the late 1930s.  But what about Muslims today, people who are generally apolitical who have no connection to terrorism, who are fleeing war-torn places like Syria and Libya with intense ethnic and religious division?  What about impoverished Mexicans simply wanting to help feed their families, who come to the United States illegally by the millions?  When and where and who for shall we open our border and allow inside?

Truth is, we’re more likely to care about those who are most like us.  Raising awareness, eliciting sympathy, and asking for sacrifices becomes a far easier consensus to achieve, collectively speaking, when the victims share our racial, religious, and cultural identities.  In short, there would be an international outcry in the West if those boats sinking in the Mediterranean were from Ireland.

We’re inherently prone to protect what we have, who we love, the possessions we own, and the territory we occupy.  Intruders potentially violate these tenets of our existence.  However, there are indeed circumstances when our own self-interests become secondary to simply doing what’s right.  We can’t save the world.  But we can save some.

And so, the final question is — who?