America absolutely should welcome Afghan refugees
Laura Ingraham recently asked on Fox: “Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan?”
The answer is a clear and resounding yes. For one thing, her premise is wrong. Refugees are subject to rigorous and time-consuming screening before they ever arrive in this country.
More seriously, America made a sacred promise to thousands of Afghans who helped our soldiers, diplomats and journalists over the last 20 years. We have a moral obligation to help them and their families escape Taliban reprisals and resettle here safely.
But there’s more: It’s in America’s deepest self-interest to welcome refugees. We are facing a demographic disaster. Because of declining birth rates and dastardly immigration policies during the Trump years, the U.S. population over the last decade “grew at the second-slowest rate since the government started counting in 1790 — and the slowest since the 1930s,” writes economic analyst Shikha Dalmia in The New York Times.
“To continue America’s upward trajectory in the 21st century, the country must reverse its current demographic decline,” she adds. And the best way to do that is to import young, hardworking, taxpaying engines of economic vitality.
Immigrants are needed to finance the retirement benefits for those who watch Fox and cheer on the nativist rants of Ingraham and fellow Trumpists.
Dalmia’s argument was echoed by novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, whose family fled Vietnam and later ran a grocery store in California. “The majority of Americans did not want to accept Southeast Asian refugees in 1975. Guess what? They were wrong,” Nguyen tweeted. “Millions of Southeast Asian Americans have contributed in ways great and small to the U.S. Afghans have done so and will do so.”
Fear of immigrants is as old as the Republic, and the Afghan crisis has unleashed those ancient animosities. Fortunately, some courageous Republicans reject the barely disguised appeals that others are selling. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois told CNN, “If anyone wants to go out and fearmonger, you are either evil in your heart yourself or you’re a charlatan who’s only interested in winning reelection.”
Republican governors, who understand the economic benefits immigrants bring to their states, also have denounced the nativists. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma said: “I welcome Afghans fleeing the terrorist Taliban regime to come to Oklahoma and live in the freedom we hold so dearly.”
Live in freedom, yes, but also contribute to the economy. Trump won Iowa, but in July Jen Sorenson, representing the state’s pork producers, testified before Congress and pleaded for more immigrants. “The U.S. pork industry is highly dependent on foreign-born employees who make tremendous contributions in their jobs and communities,” she said. “Our foreign-born workforce is an essential part of our supply chain, and we need visa reform to reflect our yearround needs.”
Individual Americans also have welcomed refugees to their communities. “We have never seen this kind of increase in people wanting to volunteer,” Jacqueline Buzas of Refugee Services of Texas told The Washington Post. “We have people calling to say, ‘I have an extra bedroom.’ Or, ‘I’m retired and have this extra house.’ People understand the human aspects of this, having to flee this life-or-death situation. And they just open the door.”
Stephen Miller, chief architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant strategy, told Fox News that resettling Afghan refugees in America “is not about solving a humanitarian crisis. It’s about accomplishing an ideological objective to change America.” In a sense, he’s right. Immigrants do change America — for the better. They always have. And they always will.