Houston Syrian American Council: Rep. McCaul and others with security concerns are just a bunch of Islamophobes
So what else is new. This is a not an unexpected opinion piece posted at Al-Jazeera by the president of an advocacy group for Syrian rights in America.
It really isn’t worth mentioning except for two things in addition to the name calling. The writer, Shiyam Galyon President of the Houston chapter of the Syrian American Council, says it is our ‘responsibility’ to bring in refugees!
Shiyam Galyon: In college she worked for the Palestine Solidarity Committee. Don’t you wonder why sometimes she wears the Hijab and at others she doesn’t.
For new readers, see recent post on House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and his committee’s concerns about Syrian refugees coming en masse (65,000!) to America.
Here is Galyon:
McCaul’s efforts to curtail the refugee resettlement program are part of a larger trend in Western countries that is exacerbating the Syrian refugee crisis by using anti-immigrant, Islamophobic sentiment to avoid resettlement responsibilities. In recent years, the program has raised its security standards and is considered successful by resettlement professionals.
Responsibilities! It is our responsibility? And, calling everyone with a differing view—Islamophobes—isn’t going to help her cause!
Then she tells us that her group has visited Rep. McCaul’s office in hopes of persuading him to not question the security issues related to allowing large numbers of refugees into the US who we previously learned could not be screened.
My organization, the Houston chapter of the Syrian American Council, took Syrian American constituents to meet with McCaul’s office in Katy, Texas, in January. We shared our anti-Assad and anti-ISIL sentiments and went on to explain how some members of the delegation initially came to America as refugees and ended up running successful businesses in Texas. ...
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