When looking at the state of the world today, there seems to be a blanket of fear placed over many people: The fear of terrorism. While some of the fears may or may not be over-blown, there are some events that have taken place over the last 15 years that do make some of the fears legitimate. The most memorable example of extreme terrorism, and one that likely sparked the current fear of terrorists, is the 9/11 attacks. Before 9/11 took place, security in our country was rather lenient, almost nonexistent. People stepping on a plane had little reason to be afraid of what weapon might be hidden in someone’s bag or if an extremist was going to take control of a plane. Even if they did, hijackers in those days generally let all the passengers go free after their demands were met.

However, after 9/11, security-and especially airport security-was increased due to the fear of terrorism. More recently, the attacks on Paris and Brussels have a fresher imprint on our memory, which resulted in approximately 165 lives lost and hundreds wounded from both attacks combined.

So it is no wonder that some people are asking the question: Should we allow immigrants from the Middle East to enter the US? The main concern is that terrorists might use this hospitality to their advantage and infiltrate the country. From there, they could plan and execute an attack on the US. This is an incredibly difficult situation since some people genuinely want to help refugees and argue that most are not terrorists, but rather, are desperate in a need of refuge.

On the other hand, despite a country’s good intentions of providing a home to refugees, there will always be a risk that a refugee is someone who plans to commit an act of terrorism. Obviously, every person in the Middle East is not a terrorist. However, that doesn’t mean that the risk of infiltration by terrorists isn’t real. Others argue that it only takes one terrorist to inflict mass casualties. Even in a rural county like Fluvanna, you can find a variety of opinions on the issue.

“I think we should still bring people in. However, we should still be careful about it. There should definitely be background checks in order to make sure that they’re not terrorists,” said senior Rachel McNair. Senior Garred Breeden agreed. “I believe that we should background check them, but so long as they check out then they should be allowed into our country because they have no home.”

Although background checks would help ease the minds of concerned Americans, there is a good chance that many of the immigrants don’t have the ability to prove their backgrounds. “I feel that right now, our background check process isn’t efficient, so until that is up to date, we shouldn’t be letting in people from Syria,” said sophomore Maddie Grimsley. Sophomore Kevin Payne agrees with Gimsley. “I think there is no need to let them in because we’ve seen the problems some of them have caused in other nations. I wouldn’t risk American lives on refugees who might or might not be in ISIS.”

National polls confirm that Americans are split on the subject. After the attack on Paris, which took place last November, a poll was taken by Bloomberg Politics National Poll. The results showed that 53 percent of Americans believe that the Syrian resettlement program, which would bring up to 100,000 Syrian refugees into America, should be cancelled immediately.

Regardless of everyone’s opinions on the issue, it is indeed probable that there is a significant risk that comes with accepting refugees from the Middle East. Even if each immigrant were to have a “favorable” background, there is no way to be certain that said background wasn’t fabricated in order to place terrorists on American soil. Ultimately, it boils down to whether we trust the people who are in desperate need to escape from their violent homeland and risk infiltration, or choose to take a safer, yet possibly crueler route and reject those in need in order to protect our country as a whole.