Saturday, January 28, 2017

The Trump Era: Refugees

I've spent a decade offering my opinions in public forums, but I don't feel quite equal to this moment. Some of this is sheer flood of outrages — I'm just comprehending one when the next comes along. Which feels like my insights about the Trump Era are often limited to:

This is wrong.
This is wrong.
This is wrong.
This is wrong.

So let's be clear: It's not wrong to want to vet refugees, with a high degree of confidence but also within reason, to try to ensure they won't be a threat to their neighbors in the U.S. We have every right to expect the government will do so.

But to say "no" to refugees entirely — without any effort to separate the wheat from the chaff, but to assign a collective punishment to people already fleeing danger — is not the mark of a great nation. It is a cowardly act. Cowardly. I am ashamed of what my government is doing today. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. 

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