Syrian refugees: Where are they now?

RATHER than struggling to gather humanitarian aid for refugees, the plans centre around investing billions of dollars, much of it to be raised on financial markets.

Syria’s population is fleeing a country where a five-year war rages. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Hungary needs even more protection. State authorities have no legal authority to bar refugees from moving to their jurisdictions.

And while the events of November 13th, 2015 are horrific and do call for attention and prayer, there is something upsetting about not having conversations about the Syrian refugee crisis that has gone on for much longer and constitutes a much stronger violation of human rights. “Development is the key”.

Swiss security officials are considering sending troops to support border guards in the wake of the Paris attacks – and the country’s migration agency is passing all files on those coming in from Syria and other war-torn countries to the Swiss intelligence agency NDB.

The fear that ISIS fighters might pose as refugees to carry out attacks in Europe or the US were stoked by a Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the men involved in the Paris attacks. Refugees submit to in-person interviews overseas, where they provide biographical details about themselves, including their families, friendships, social or political activities, employment, phone numbers, email accounts and more. The agency, Frontex, said Tuesday it was in urgent need of additional officers to fingerprint and screen migrants.

Renewed calls for scrutiny of refugees, if not outright refusal to admit them, have become commonplace. Few of us can take in a refugee. However, his statement directly contradicts FBI director James Comey who said last month in a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing that the federal government does not have the ability to conduct a thorough background check on all 10,000 refugees. Separately, the World Bank is working on new ideas for raising billions of dollars for large-scale investments. The bank estimates it will cost $US170 billion over 10 years to rebuild Syria and another $US100 billion to rebuild Libya. “Frankly, those amounts… are not available in terms of grant money today”, Belhaj said.

There are 14.4 million refugees globally, but less than 144,000 are considered for resettlement – where a refugee is relocated to another country.

More than one million Syrian refugees now live in Lebanon, most of whom live in such makeshift camps under similar grueling conditions. None of the 750,000 refugees admitted to the United States since 9/11 have been arrested on domestic terror charges.

In early September, when the Greek coast guards took TIME on a patrol in the Aegean, Papas and his crew mates were well aware that unsafe stowaways could be among the migrants they were rescuing each night from the waters near the maritime border with Turkey. “The host governments are scared, really…” Most people are not aware of how carefully refugees eligible for resettlement are vetted, so the anxiety is understandable. “They could contribute to economic growth and job creation if there is worldwide investment in parallel”.

This chart by MercyCorps shows the sudden rise of refugees as the Syrian civil war intensified. Syrians working illegally in construction, agriculture and other sectors have pushed down wages, while rents in poor neighbourhoods have risen sharply as refugees flood in. The World Bank plans were first proposed in October at a meeting in Lima, Peru, attended by the United Nations chief, top World Bank officials and representatives of the Islamic Development Bank. It’s an act of leadership that decisively rejects the suggestion that Europe should respond to this crisis by being less compassionate about the plight of refugees. The overall group is nearly evenly split among men and women. The refugees’ exodus to Europe could serve as a catalyst for change, Egeland said. “This is a very solid vetting process but I don’t think the administration has explained it to the American public”, Kaine told reporters. “Imagine this desperation. We have nothing to lose”. That is not enough. “Invest in hope for them, invest in development, invest in work”.