Title: Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants: Three Reasons People Flee Home - Preemptive Love
Headings: Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants: Three Reasons People Flee Home
Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Migrants: Three Reasons People Flee Home
Preserving Safety
Preserving Family
Preserving Normalcy

Content: They might stay until conflict reaches their city, forcing them to flee for their safety. A lot of our refugee friends from Iraq and Syria fled not when the conflict started, but when ISIS came close to their community, when the safety of their families were threatened, when they began to hear stories of the violence that was being done close to home. Sometimes it isn’t war, but gang violence that forces people out. In Central America, gangs pose a real threat, one as dangerous as war. One woman explained that she was forced to leave when a gang, mistaking her tattoo as the symbol for a rival gang, threatened to kill her. A nother woman in Honduras fled after both her mother and son were killed in the same week by gangs. Despite knowing the trek to the US would be dangerous, she left because she knew: “ If I stay here, I will die.” They leave because of war, because of gang violence, yes, but it’s more than that. It’s imminent danger, it’s the threat of unspeakable violence, it’s the specter that follows you through your days until you finally are able to flee—whether you are a refugee from the Middle East or a “ migrant ” from Central America.