The Syrian Civil War has reached a level that is affecting surrounding countries in a negative way. The war has officially been going on  four-and-a-half years and has attributed to at least 250,000 fatalities.

Since 2011, approximately 9 million Syrians have been forced to migrate with 4.1 million registered as refugees. Most of these people have no part in the war itself and just want to live in a nonviolent environment. As a result, the rest of the world is facing the issue of relocating the refugees.

Countries that temporarily have taken in refugees are Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt. However, these countries are not the best fit for the refugees because of violence from terrorist organizations. Apart from the fact that they are still in the Middle East, in harm’s way, the conditions are less than appealing. For example, Lebanon, a Middle Eastern country about the size of Massachusetts and shares a border with Syria has now accepted around 1.1 million refugees, which has increased their population by 25%, according to Michael Martinez, CNN.

There are also many children that have been affected. UNICEF has 7.5 million children age seventeen and under have been affected by the violence.

Many refugees have applied for asylum in safer countries around the world. Asylum is protection provided by a country for people that left their native country for safety. Most who apply, do so in Europe because of its close proximity to Syria. According to certain sources, Germany has taken 100,000 refugees that have applied. Sweden accepted 65,000. 7,000 arrive by boat each day in Greek islands but haven’t been granted asylum yet. Since 2011, about 250,000 asylum requests have been sent to many European countries.

The United States has taken a surprisingly low number of refugees compared to the Europeans. Out of all the refugees, the United States has taken just over 1,000 people. President Obama has voiced his concerns and has said that he wishes to resettle 10,000  Syrian refugees to the United States by 2020. Congress has still not been able to decide on the amount of refugees to let in, or even if they will take anymore. With the upcoming 2016 presidential elections, we will get some fresh looks on how to handle this problem.

After the recent attacks in Paris, France, countries around the world are reconsidering the approach to accepting refugees. On November 19, 2015, the US House of Representatives passed a law blocking the entrance of Syrian refugees. According to “USA Today”, the President is contemplating vetoing the bill. The bill would allow for much greater background checks to try and avoid a Paris-like situation. Ahmad Almohammad was a Syrian refugee that landed in Greece on October 4, 2015, with fake documents. About a month-and-a-half later, he died in a suicide attack at the French National Soccer team’s stadium. He was the only one directly born in Syria, but still caused destruction. Since the attacks, France and the rest of the European Union haven’t changed their immigration policy but many are calling for European immigration reform to try and prevent further tragedies.