In recent years, the refugee problem has evolved from the local crisis in Europe into a worldwide problem, which has also led many European countries, along with the United States, to fall into the humanitarian crisis of whether to accept refugee. Should Europe and the United States have the responsibility to accept refugees? The answer to this question is definitely “yes”. However, the more severe and key questions facing the whole world right now is not those who should be blamed and accused, but “who are received”, “which countries to accept them” and “how they should be accepted” around the refugee problem. 

My paper revolves around these three aspects mentioned above and advocates that the concept of refugees should be clearly defined, the primary responsibilities and division of labor should be harmonized in the context of the harmonization and optimization of the conditions and procedures of screening, thus ensuring the full protection of refugees. What’s more, reflection on the root causes of the problems should also be summarized, so as to give relevant opinions and suggestions on how to prevent the occurrence of similar problems in the future. Based on above analysis and discussion, my argument is that states and governments should accept refugees.

First and most urgently, it is vital to have a clear, standardized and unified definition of the concept of refugees. The resources of the refugee host countries are limited, and the influx of large numbers of refugees has already brought big resource burdens to many European countries. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish and screen refugees from other economic asylum-seekers and even terrorists, so as to better help those whose life and health are threatened under the premise of national security of the recipient countries (Andrew). Secondly, the issue--“which countries to accept them”, involves how different countries bear their responsibilities on refugee issues, and the size of the corresponding responsibilities. There is no doubt that United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) should take a leading role in coordinating with major countries, such as Europe and the United States, to breakthroughs in issues related to access to refugees, harmonization of standards, policies for screening, along with placement and management of refugees after admission (Caitlin, Sama).

Constant Wars and conflicts, mostly concentrated in the Middle East and Africa areas, are central to the refugee problem. In particular, Syria's persistent internal and external conflict has become the main reason for the large dramatically increased number of refugees across the whole world in recent years. UNHCR's report in 2014 revealed that the total number of internally displaced persons was as high as 59.5 million by the end of 2014. At the same time, more than 13.9 million new displaced persons had been added, which was almost three times the number of that in the beginning of the "Arab Spring" in 2011 and broke the fastest annual record (UNHCR Global Trends). It is worth noting that 51 percent of the world's refugees in 2014 were under 18 years, which exceeded half of the total number of refugees (UNHCR Global Trends). Successive wars have been an important cause of refugees. These residents have to leave their homeland to become refugees and they are not terrorists.

UNHCR also pointed out in that report that Syria had become the largest source of refugees in the world since its outbreak of conflicts. In 2014, the fastest growing number of refugees in the world was in Europe, which accounted for an increase of 51% (UNHCR Global Trends). In addition, more than half of the world's new refugees mainly came from three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. Among them, Syrian alone added about 388 million refugees (UNHCR Global Trends).

Therefore, refugees could be divided into two major categories: refugees caused by war and refugees caused by natural disasters, and both of these two kinds refer to those whose own personal safety cannot be guaranteed under some certain circumstances and was forced to flee to other countries. However, the refugee group sometimes is mixed with those who go to other countries to find opportunities in order to improve their own economic conditions, as well as some potential extreme terrorists. Illegal immigration, terrorism and refugees are mixed together, which has not only increased the size of the European refugee wave, but also greatly increased the region's instability. Thus, it is necessary to accurately define the concept of refugees, thus well distinguishing them from illegal immigration and terrorism (Andrew). Only by doing this way can we accept and be willing to help the refugees.

The 1951 Refugee Convention defined refugees as “‘Any person’ owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it” (1951 conviction). Later, some scholars in related fields further studied and defined this concept. For example, by exploring and concluding the historical origins of the vocabulary and analyzing the use of the related concepts, Andre draws on his own concept of refugee, which states to “Refugee status should only be granted to persons whose government fails to protect their basic needs, who have no remaining recourse other than to seek international restitution of these needs, and who are situated that international assistance is possible” (Andrew), which has well helped to differentiate refugees from Asylum seekers.

Why should the rest of the world accept these refugees? On the one hand, due to some historical reasons, some people believe that the emergence of these refugees, especially political refugees, is closely related to the attitudes and behavior of other countries, as they either lead the public opinion, make decisions that are opposed or endorsed at some international conferences, or just keep a stand-by attitude, all of which have a direct or indirect effect on the political crisis in the country of refugees and lead to the emergence of these refugees. And among all the countries, the impact of Europe and the United States is particularly prominent. These people who advocate that the government should accept refugees believe that it is undeniable that the intervention policy of the United States and Europe brought chaos and humanitarian disasters to the Middle East. Even though the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa was certainly related to the intensification of internal conflicts, the external interference also played a primary role in fueling the fire. After the unrest, the Western countries carried out naked interference in the internal affairs of the country concerned, publicly supported the violence of the opposition, fueled the turmoil, and even used war means to overthrow their excluded regimes. The catastrophic consequences of the interference of the United States and Europe against Libya and Syria are the best examples (Frank). If governments want to strengthen countries’ influence, they can't intervene in other countries' internal affairs. Creating a peaceful and stable atmosphere will maximize to solve the refugee problems. These views are also the main causes of the humanitarian crisis facing Europe and the United States right now. According to the UNHCR 2014 global trends report, more than 5.9 million UNHCR-protected refugees remain in countries with a per capita GDP of less than $ 5,000 and developing countries have received 86% of the world's refugees (UNHCR Global Trends). 

In addition to the view that Europe and the United States should be responsible for their past behavior in the Middle East, “some of the developed economies that are financially strong should take a leading role in international issues such as the refugee crisis” also brings large refugee receiving pressure to Europe and the United States. Now that globalization is becoming more and more obvious, it is not a closed world. Other countries around the world are supposed to contribute to the problem of refugees. It is the common responsibility of all countries to maintain the stability and prosperity of the world.

On the other hand, the terrorist panic now facing the world has also made the refugee problem become a worldwide problem that has to be faced. Many countries have invested a lot of manpower and money in combating terrorism. But if they are only combatting the existing terrorism, and not the root causes to eliminate the problem, terrorist panic is difficult to dissipate. Britain, France and other European countries involved in high-profile affairs of the Middle East, take the lead in participating in the anti-terrorism alliance, led by the United States, to increase the intensity of anti-terrorism and the monitoring of the Muslim population, which has made them became the central targets of hatred of religious extremists. In the era of globalization, international terrorist organizations develop secret positions around the world. They use the network, social media coordination action to recruit people, build transnational and cross-regional terrorist network, which largely promote the spread of extreme ideas in the global spread. Now that terrorism is rampant, the refusal to accept refugees will undoubtedly provide opportunities for extremist organizations to incite those refugees to retaliate against other countries and bring more security problems to the rest of the world. Thus, the state and the government should be more concerned with accepting and helping refugees to maintain global peace and stability.

Many countries still have objection to the issue of accepting refugees, which is largely due to the difficulty of refugee placement and the negative impacts on their domestic politics, economy and society the inappropriate placement may bring about. The large influx of refugees will bring about a series of political, economic, social and other negative effects and challenges to the receiving countries. Firstly, from the political point of view, the refugees will affect receiving countries' domestic politics, policies and international relations. From economic and social points of view, receiving countries will be facing enormous financial pressure in order to protect and guarantee the basic livelihood of the refugees. In addition, the influx of refugees can interfere with the labor market of the recipient countries, leading to the increased unemployment rate, which will also largely increase their social instability (Migrant crisis). All these had performed particularly evident in the European and global refugee crisis. According to the EU's Dublin agreement, refugees should apply for political asylum in the first country of the EU area they’ve entered. However, the fact is that many refugees do not want to settle down in the first countries they’ve entered such as Greece and Hungary, and they yearn for more developed Western Europe, and are even willing to take the risk of illegal smuggling. The influx of refugees not only increased the difficulty of border management in European countries, but also brought great challenges the European integration process and political integration process.

Previously, the United States has been active in the re-placement of refugees and has given many refugees permanent residence. However, recently, the wind began to change. And at the same time, a series of European countries have changed their attitudes towards receiving refugee from embracing at the beginning to prevaricating against each other after the 2015 refugee crisis. What’s worse, the EU also tightened immigration policies to take measures to strengthen border controls, increase maritime patrols, intercept refugee ships, implement refugee-sharing and resettlement programs, and sign up for "exchange" agreements with Turkey, so that to largely minimize the total number of refugees. Now, it appears that the number of refugees across the world is still increasing rather than decreasing, but neither the refugees who have been admitted or the refugees who have continued to be in exile are well settled in settle. Refugee marginalization is more severe than ever and more challenges are still on the way (Gillian).

The issue of how to deal with refugees now seems to be more severe and urgent than ever. On the one hand, the number of refugees to be resettled in the world is not only reduced, but increased. And on the other hand, many countries are now more hesitant and mutually shirking on the issue of receiving refugees due to the difficulty in coordinating the relationship between refugees and the public. 

At present, there are three main methods to address refugee problems: voluntary repatriation, arrangement in the current sheltered place and relocated to third countries. Voluntary repatriation is the most desirable and often the only viable way, but it requires that the refugees could gradually realize self-reliance. In recent years, fewer and fewer refugees could be repatriated to their original countries due to the lasting wars and unrest of their home countries. Relocation refers to the transfer of refugees from the country they are located now to another new country that has agreed to accept them as refugees and eventually gives them permanent residence, that is to say, they are transferred from one to a third country due to some certain reasons (Jastram & Achiron).

Even though these measures have brought about some positive effects on the settlement of refugee problems, it’s not sufficient to totally address the issue due to a lack of access to the root causes of refugee problems. Facts have been proved that both solving the specific problems and eliminating the root causes must be combined and go hand in hand to truly solve the problem, which requires not only the provision of relief and proper placement of refugees, but also actively curbing international aggression, expansion and ending the rule of racism, so that to finally cease the human causes of large numbers of refugees.

Although countries of the European Union have accepted the Dublin Convention and the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees. However, the types of documents for the temporary residence of the Member States in respect of the criteria for the screening of refugees are still the sovereign acts of the Member States. As a result, there has been disagreements within the EU regarding refugee apportionment programs. European Commission Chairman had called on the EU to come up with a more complete legal immigration program in early 2016, opening up legal immigration channels, so that refugees could have more secure way to Europe, thus countries in Europe could have better control over immigration. While short-term refugee reception to long-term social integration is a major challenge for refugee-receiving countries, the EU can regard the crisis as an opportunity to deepen the role of member states in the administration of justice, internal affairs, immigration and refugee system and other aspects of cooperation, so that to speed up the development of some more common, internal, diplomatic policies.

Thus, the proper settlement of the global refugee problem requires not only the integration of refugees into the current recipient countries, but also financial assistance to the countries of refugee origin to help them restore political and economic stability as soon as possible. In addition, the global unified refugee receiving policy should be gradually formed, so as to open the legal aid channels for refugees and do a good job of management and security.

In this era of economic globalization and information globalization, any catastrophe and crisis also seem to be globalized. No country or individual can both enjoy the benefits and avoid the negative effects consequently at the same time, and this is exactly the attitude the whole world should have and the position they should take in dealing with the refugee issues. By creating conditions of protecting the safety of lives and giving provision of basic material life for the refugees, more countries are actually making fundamental contributions to the long-term stability of the countries themselves and the whole world. Development is based on stability, and only countries all over the world work together to solve the problem of refugees from the root causes, can they better promote the world’s political, economic, social and cultural sustainable development.
