A picture is worth a thousand words, and one taken this year will be remembered forever.

One photo of a small, vulnerable child who drowned at sea as his family fled Syria grasped our collective consciousness and guilt – feelings that should have been recognized years earlier. This summer, all it took was one photo for the world to finally realize the extent of the despair and violence that is an everyday reality for millions of Syrian civilians who have been caught in the crossfires of a prolonged, bloody civil war.

The Syrian refugee crisis has been growing, reaching a scale unseen since World War II. Refugees from Syria and Iraq have been risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean since at least as early as 2013, but this year, as boat after boat capsized on their way to Europe, the story finally became a headline. European governments were pressured to respond to the humanitarian crisis. German officials announced in August that the country was expecting 800,000 asylum-seekers, but new estimates show that the country will receive more than a million by the end of 2015.

Elsewhere, the influx of refugees has stirred xenophobic political sentiments. A wall is being built across Hungary’s border, which had been a point of access to the European Union for many refugees this summer.

In the United States, after the terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS in Paris, the governors of 31 states across the country voiced their opposition to allowing refugee resettlement. Presidential candidates have chimed in, with Ted Cruz saying that the U.S. should only allow Christian refugees, and Donald Trump calling for an outright ban on Muslims generally immigrating to the United States after the San Bernardino shooting.

The House of Representatives passed a bill that would add more layers of security checks to the rigorous two-year security process that refugees from Syria and Iraq already face. The Senate has yet to approve the bill, and Northwestern students started a petition in November asking Congress to reject the bill.

Meanwhile, the Chicago City Council enacted a referendum that went against Governor Bruce Rauner’s position barring refugee resettlement in the state. The Obama administration has pledged to take in 10,000 refugees by 2016. It’s a marked increase from the 2,000 refugees the U.S. has resettled since 2012.

Canada is on track to one-up the United States, and has pledged to resettle 10,000 individuals before the new year, for a total of 25,000 refugees by the end of next February. Newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was at the airport greeting the first families arriving in early December, handing them winter coats and welcoming them to their new homes. Indeed, 2016 will be an important year for the Syria crisis, particularly with the presidential election.