Both Europe and the U.S. have so far declined to endow Christians fleeing persecution in the Middle East with the status of asylum seekers. Indeed, writes Elliott Abrams, it is probably more difficult for Christian refugees to get into the U.S. than it is for Muslims. Abrams urges that much more be done:
[Middle Eastern] Christians are not random victims of widespread violence, disorder, or economic collapse. Unlike their Muslim neighbors, they are targets. And unlike their neighbors, they cannot flee to neighboring countries where their coreligionists are in the majority and where prejudice and discrimination against them on the basis of religion will be absent.
In fact, most of the migrants in the flood going to Europe these days likely do not qualify as refugees under international law. Escaping war or economic disaster, or trying for a better life for one’s family, does not meet the definition. Consider our own refugee and asylum laws, in which targeting is the main idea. . . . The Immigration and Nationality Act says asylum requires a “well-founded fear of persecution,” a test many Muslim migrants would not meet but Christians from Iraq and Syria certainly would. . . .
The argument for reaching out to rescue Christian refugees and those from other threatened religious minorities is clear: they are worse off than their Muslim neighbors. They face special circumstances, of which we should in all fairness take account. To turn away from them because they are Christian and we do not wish to be accused of favoritism toward Christians is a shameful position for Americans—Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist—to take.
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