A correspondent, Carol Rinzler, asked those she writes to if we believed President Trump and Jared would allow our ancestors into the country. I answered:
It is unlikely that my grandparents and great grandparents would have been able to enter the US under Jared’s proposal. They did not speak English. They did not have offers of employment. They were not particularly well educated. Nevertheless, their children and grandchildren became valuable members of American society.
I prefer a system that does not give points, that prioritizes those who warrant amnesty, who are escaping terrible conditions in their homelands.
We have to develop a system to manage numbers. Responding to the enormous numbers of people who have left their homes because of turmoil is a world obligation. The problem in the Americas — central America and Venezuela — is substantial, but much less than the problem in the Middle East. We cannot reasonably expect to shunt all the Syrian refugees to Turkey. We need to persuade Americans and Europeans about the value of taking a long view and then implementing a process in an orderly way.