Boston Strong. Within hours of the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15, 2013, those words spread across the internet and over the airwaves. The motto soon appeared on T-shirts, hats, and bracelets. The bombings killed three people, wounded many more—some very severely—and left witnesses and bystanders stunned and traumatized. In the face of this tragedy, “Boston Strong” came to represent the city’s strength and defiance, and to celebrate acts of heroism and our determination to persevere.
Now, less than three years later, many of our political leaders would have us go from Boston Strong to America Weak. The news of the attacks in Paris gave rise to pledges of solidarity. But as soon as news surfaced that police had found a Syrian passport near the body of a dead suicide bomber outside the Stade de France, the response changed dramatically as governors, members of congress, and Republican presidential candidates pumped up a wave of fear and hysteria.
The passport’s provenance remains uncertain—some reports suggest it was a fake—in which case we know nothing about the bomber’s background. But the governors of thirty-one states raced to shut their states to refugees. Some, like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, issued executive orders blocking the settlement of refugees. In Indiana, Governor Mike Pence ordered suspension of resettlement, forcing a local charity to find a new home for a Syrian refugee family in Connecticut.
Other governors, including Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, claimed that they wanted more information about the government’s process for resettling Syrians, although the rules are already available. A phone call or search on the State Department web site would have quickly revealed that refugees already face multiple levels of time-consuming screening before they can enter the United States, a process that typically takes eighteen to twenty-four months.
In Congress, Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the House, possibly sensing political opportunity, pushed through a bill to all but eliminate resettlement of Syrian refugees and threw in Iraqi refugees as well for good measure. He, and every other member who voted for the bill, should have known that its provisions are patently absurd, requiring the Homeland Security secretary, FBI director, and National Intelligence director each to certify that every individual Iraqi and Syrian refugee poses no security threat. Our nation’s top security and intelligence officials do not and will not ever be able to personally investigate every refugee – blocking all resettlement of refugees from Syria and Iraq appears to be the bill’s real goal. Republicans, with two honorable exceptions, voted for the bill accompanied by forty-five Democrats who may fear that potential attack ads will charge them as “weak on terror.”
Not to be outdone, Republican presidential candidates joined in the panicked frenzy. The tough straight shooter Chris Christie boasted that he would even keep out orphaned three-year olds orphans. Ben Carson, the compassionate neurosurgeon, called for cutting federal funds for any program that resettles Syrian refugees and compared Syrians fleeing their war-torn homes to “rabid dogs” loose in our neighborhoods. It was hard to stand out in this crowd for an ostensibly responsible candidate like Jeb Bush who actually suggested that the United States should resettle only Christian refugees —the Muslims will have to fend for themselves.
So, in place of “Boston Strong,” too many of our leaders have embraced the motto of “America Weak,” responding to this latest attack not with courage, solidarity, and compassion, but with hysteria, ignorance, and cruelty. Showing strength in the face of crisis does not mean ignoring genuine risks, but in our efforts to protect ourselves we cannot abandon the values that make us who we are – or who we aspire to be – by indiscriminately barring from our shores those who need our help the most.