As masses of Syrian refugees continue to flood Europe, paranoia is running high.Hungary built a fence designed to repel the newcomers, and a transnational brawl has ensued over how many of these forced migrants should be accepted by whom. Even in the United States, just how much of a welcome the refugees should receive is hotly contested. Leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump brazenlytold one audience, “I’m putting the people on notice who are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they’re going back.”
Trump’s outrage is a bit laughable given that the United States has received only about 1,500 Syrian refugees to date – compared to more than 1 million each in Lebanon and Turkey and 629,000 in Jordan. Meanwhile, Germany has received 98,700 applications for asylum and Sweden has received 64,700.