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Oxfam America, a nonprofit organization, said in a statement: We are relieved that the Biden administration has, after a long and unnecessary delay, kept its promise to raise the refugee admissions cap for this year to 62,500.

The back-and-forth about the refugee program is the latest turn in the presidents struggle to deal with the immigration system.

On his first day in office, Mr. Biden proposed a comprehensive overhaul of the nations immigration laws and issued a number of executive orders aimed at rolling back Mr. Trumps policies. But after about 100 days, immigration legislation still has not advanced in Congress. And for weeks, Mr. Biden delayed raising refugee admissions, despite a plea from his own secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, to make good on his commitment.

The administration has also had to defend its response to a surge of migrants at the border with Mexico, even as Mr. Biden has continued to rely on a Trump-era health rule to rapidly turn away many migrants from entering the United States without providing them a chance to apply for asylum. The administration has said the rule is necessary to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The presidents Republican critics have seized on the issue as a political weapon, accusing Mr. Biden of making poor policy choices that opened the floodgates to illegal immigration during a pandemic.

The administration, however, has made progress in safely processing migrant children and teenagers out of border detention facilities and into temporary shelters. While more than 5,000 minors were stuck in facilities run by the Border Patrol in March, on Monday, the administration recorded roughly 600 minors in such jail-like facilities.

White House officials have urged migrants not to come to the United States now, but have promised that Mr. Biden will work to increase legal opportunities to live, work and visit the United States. Eleanor Acer, the director of refugee protection at Human Rights First, said the president must continue to do that.

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In Another Reversal, Biden Raises Limit on Number of Refugees Allowed Into the U.S. - The New York Times

In last weeks Dickinson County News the author of a Letter to The Editor complained that Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds should welcome all the illegal immigrants with open arms. I am happy the governor did not jump at the chance to subsidize the housing, food, medical care and education for an unknown number of persons to be paid by Iowa taxpayers.

The humanitarian crisis at the U.S.Mexico border was caused by President Biden by his actions his first day in office:

Biden stopped construction of the southern border wall 450 miles had already been constructed. Much of the material and construction costs for the unfinished portions of the wall had already been paid.

Biden reinstated the failed Obama-era catch-and-release policy. When illegals were caught during the Trump administration the illegals were sent back. Now under Biden, illegals are released into the United States most are not given a future hearing date. History shows most of these illegals disappear into the United States.

Biden cancelled the northern triangle deal (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) made by President Trump that required asylum seekers to stay in their home country in order to seek asylum.

Biden ended the Remain in Mexico policy that Trump had negotiated with the Mexican government. This means illegal migrants can come into the United States without waiting in Mexico. As a result, they flood across the border making any kind of control impossible.

These four Trump policies were so effective they resulted in a massive drop in illegal immigrationso much so that in 2020, the United States experienced thelowestlevel of illegal immigration in 45 years. Now, because of Joe Biden's policies, we have thehighestrate of illegal immigration in 20 years.

President Biden and Vice-President Harris are so afraid of the southern border crisis they refuse to go anywhere close to the border, They do not even want to talk about the border crisis they have created. To fix the border problem, they would have to admit President Trump had the right border policies. The national news media is all too willing to sweep the border problem under the rug.

Many people believe illegal immigrants have the right to asylum if they ever place one foot in the United States. This is not true. In order to be granted U.S. asylum, a person must show they are being politically persecuted in their home country. Economic hardship and general crime cannot be used to justify U.S. asylum. If we are in fact such a racist country, it is a mystery why so many people want to come to the United States.

One might think the Democrats feel sorry for these people who want to immigrate to the United States. I believe the real Democratic motivation is to create more Democratic voters, since the American people will not support their policies when the policies are fully explained. Their goal is to create a large block of voters who are dependent on the United States government for their housing, food, medical care and education; and therefore, support Democratic candidates.

There are more than five billion people in the world. The United States does not have the resources to solve the economic problems for everyone in the world. The U.S. government's purpose is take care of its existing citizens. Too many Americans, including veterans, are sleeping in the streets.

Phil Petersen

Okoboji

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Letter to the Editor: Who caused the immigration crisis? Who should pay? (5/4/21) - Dickinson County News

OJINAGA, Mexico Under the international bridge connecting this town to Presidio, Texas, a human smuggling guide snorted cocaine with a buddy and two prostitutes the chosen rewards earned from leading a large group of Central American immigrants on a long backpacking journey to new American lives.

Jose Antonio, the name offered to the Center for Immigration Studies, said he was a long-distance foot guide, a guia for the ultra-violent La Linea cartel controlling this area. He leads groups of immigrants on eight- to 12-day treks through the remote desert terrain in West Texas with a singular goal: get them to U.S. Interstate 10, where associates pick them up at landmarks and drive them into the nations interior.

By cell phone, Antonio ordered the chunk of plastic-wrapped cocaine and paid the delivery man from a fist-sized wad of $500 and $200 peso bills pulled from the front pocket of his jeans. He chopped up the small white block with a knife on the tailgate of his beat-up old Chevy pickup truck a brand new truck was on order with all his new money, he said.

Over the course of an hour or so, Antonio explained the business, attributing his windfall to what he termed la invitacin, the invitation. This is the local cartel reference to presidential candidate Joe Bidens promises to the worlds poor that if they crossed the border illegally when he becomes president they would be welcomed to stay, never fear deportation and maybe get citizenship. Antonio said that when Biden actually won, business in Mexicos Chihuahua State instantly boomed como nunca! Like never before.

They come in from all over Central America, Haiti, Africa, Indonesia and from all over South America, Antonio explained between snorts from a flattened 16-penny nail, smiling at his new good fortune. They just keep coming and keep coming and keep coming.

For the first time in local memories, rising streams of large groups 50 to 100 illegal immigrants each are constantly flowing through the normally quiet Big Bend Sector, one of the biggest, remote and perhaps out-of-mind of the eight designated CBP operating areas along the southern border. With 165,154 square miles and 571 miles of Rio Grande border, Big Bend also is historically the least traveled by illegal immigrants, perhaps because of its deterring harshness.

Not anymore, though.

Eighteen-wheeler tractor-trailer rigs and trucks of all sizes now pull right up to the river in unending succession to unload people and drug cargo in broad daylight along the long empty stretches of riverside territory. Police chases of immigrant transport vehicles are now commonplace in towns further inland for the first time. And Border Patrol agents, largely unreinforced despite new circumstances, are chasing groups through the desert day and night, losing most and strained beyond capacity to impact whats happening, they say.

Its never been this busy, one agent who has worked in the Van Horn Station Area for more than a decade told CIS. Ive never seen 18-wheelers out on the levy on the Mexican side like this, filled with God only knows what. It was predicted before the new administration came in, and it happened. Now the cartels are having a field day.

In one recent reflective incident, five vehicles blasted in from the Mexican side not far south of Sierra Blanca filled with marijuana, meth and 87 immigrants. Border Patrol caught that convoy.

But much more often, Border Patrol only ever learns about these events from tracks that churn the dirt, video recordings from hidden cameras and distant dust plumes. Inland, sheriffs deputies and Texas DPS Highway Patrol routinely engage in high-speed vehicle chases of smuggler vehicles that pick up migrants off the interstate and state roads leading to it.

More often than not, the passengers and drivers bail out and run into the desert, never to be seen again. The most recent of three crazy smuggler vehicle chases through Marfa and Fort Davis, where Presidio County Sheriff Danny Dominguez was in the lead vehicle, ended in the backyard of Dominguezs own house. The driver ran and got away.

The Runners: Who, How Many, and Why Here for the First Time?

The illegal immigration surge through this lightly populated, rugged wilderness sector is entirely new and different than what most American media reports show is happening in other sections of the border. The vast majority of illegal immigrants now coming over a shallow Rio Grande border are single adults, rather than the families and unaccompanied minors flooding other zones and attracting media attention hundreds of miles south.

The many reasons for this are not initially obvious.

To understand, it helps to know that families and unaccompanied minors now attracting some national attention are ushered in by the tens of thousands under Biden administration policies some call catch-and-bus. After turning themselves in to the first agents they can find, the vast majority of these immigrants are quickly processed, given temporary legal status, and released to board buses heading to cities throughout the nation rich rewards that attract ever more immigrant families in a self-perpetuating cycle of illegal border crossings. The families and unaccompanied teenagers come to these crossing areas because they are cheaper, shorter, and easier on parents hauling small children than those in West Texas.

But the singles are coming to Big Bend because catch-and-bus does not apply to most of them. When they get caught among the families and teens, Border Patrol instantly expels most to Mexico under the Trump-era pandemic-containment policy colloquially known as Title 42, which Biden kept. Some singles in other sectors (known as runners because they do not want to be caught and expelled) try over and over before either going home weary of the repetitive instant expulsions, or shop for easier sectors where they can get through.

Now, however, the smugglers and many other single runners, shopping border sectors for paths of least resistance, have discovered Big Bend and its high probabilities for successful illegal entry and evasion.

Sector apprehension statistics show a massive spike there, almost all of it in the category of single adult runners.

For example, U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics show that just 3,029 single adults were apprehended in the first quarter through March 2020. For the same period this year, the number spiked to 14,091, a 365 percent increase. A smattering of family unit and unaccompanied minor apprehensions brought the sector total for just that one quarter to 15,389.

For historical perspective as to just how significant that number is, consider that total apprehensions of all immigrant categories in the sector for full past fiscal years amounted to 4,096 in 2014, 5,031 in 2015, 6,366 in 2016, and 6,002 in 2017. So more than 15,000 in a single quarter for Big Bend reflects that the nations historic border surge has arrived here with a vengeance.

The real total numbers are likely much, much higher than official tally of 15,389. The Border Patrol agents who work here estimate that 70-80 percent get away clean here, probably even more. That means tens of thousands more could probably be added to the official tally, assuming a 70 percent no-catch rate.

People who live here dont need numbers to know whats going on.

Homesteaders Miguel and Alma Soto, who are building a wooden house on 75 acres of desert a mile from the river, said they see immigrant groups every week moving constantly by them on some invisible route on the other side of a flimsy barbed-wire fence from their property. It wasnt like that when they first bought, and now they feel pretty insecure.

Theres no border. Theres no wall, Miguel said. Theyll come across, you know, but the problem to us is that some could be armed.

Ray Whetstone, owner of the Neely Ranch which backs up to a standalone wall segment, said the segment quieted things down for years. Now, large groups are coming through his property, crossing before the wall starts and moving horizontally across the southern part of his ranch. He said hes been sleeping with a gun at the pillow now for the first time in his life, ever since the new president.

Since the election, theres lots of traffic coming through, Whetstone said. Theres just more, a lot more.

For single adult immigrants and their smugglers, the Big Bend Sector offers a range of other attributes that contribute to a higher probability that immigrants will reach the U.S. interior than theyll have in more infrastructure-rich sectors further south.

A Border Washington Has Left Almost Undefended

Beyond Bidens la invitacin, Antonio offered why he thought so many were now willing to pay top dollar for long, arduous wilderness slogs that, so short a time ago, were regarded as unappealing.

Theres no one watching on the American side, he offered.

Indeed, ranchers, residents, police and federal agents agree with Antonio that the Big Bend region is among the least patrolled on the border, a forgotten backdoor left open when it comes to CBP resource allocations. Theres precious little wall anywhere south of Fort Hancock; one 4.5-mile segment built under President George W. Bush stands alone in a surrounding wilderness south of Sierra Blanca doing nothing to stem a tide that simply goes around it.

By all accounts, the single runners are flooding in, over and around a tiny Border Patrol force that tries but can only do so much with what it was given.

CBP does not publicly release personnel strength data, lest criminals use those numbers to inform their illicit operations. The agents working in the Sierra Blanca and Van Horn stations, however, tell CIS that some shifts field fewer than a half-dozen field agents for 120 miles of river border, arroyos, canyons, and mountains. Agents in other stations appear to have been lent out to help manage family units in far-away sectors. During a 60-mile round-trip drive along Highway 170, along the river in the Alpine station area, CIS did not see a single Border Patrol agent.

All complain that their ranks are ridiculously miniscule to catch more than a small fraction of those coming through.

Theyre just bum-rushing the border. Probably three-quarters of them are getting away, one said. Its like each station is only allotted a certain number of agents hired and, even if we had the maximum, its not enough to stop the groups. They know were overwhelmed and the word has gotten out. As long as they send a giant amount of people out, theyll get through.

Still, they try.

During a recent visit, for instance, CIS came across an empty Border Patrol vehicle, left open with a window rolled down, about 35 miles south of Van Horn. Tracks suggested the agent must have spooked a large group of immigrants and then pursued them into an otherwise trackless desert. After an hour, the agent still had not returned to his vehicle and the odds that he caught all of them, or any at all, did not seem very promising.

Tracks lead from an empty Border Patrol vehicle into the desert, an agents boot print among those of illegal immigrants near Valentine, Texas. Photo by Todd Bensman

In another circumstance on a different morning in the same area, CIS observed four Border Patrol agent vehicles maneuvering through the desert in pursuit of what one said was a large group picked up by surveillance, probably a drone.

After more than an hour searching the desert on foot and by vehicle, using high-tech vision technology mounted on the back of one truck, the group had to admit defeat and leave the area to do something else.

Little relief is in the offing.

The agency lately has taken to adding D-Day type vehicle barriers to parts of the river to deter the brazen smuggling. CBP did send a Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) to the region last month to shore things up.

CIS met two National Guard troops who were sent to Big Bend Sector to help fill gaps and spot for groups. One said there not many others were sent.

But resources are still stretched thin. When the Biden Department of Homeland Security ordered redeployments of Border Patrol agents from the northern border, and called for volunteers from other federal agencies, they went elsewhere.

CBP spokesman Gregory Davis, in an email exchange, did not answer specific questions about the agencys response to the sectors new circumstances, to include any recent response or future plans for it.

Davis wrote that 300 Border Patrol agents from northern and coastal sectors had been shifted to supportoperations due to fluctuations along the Southwest Border, though he did not say where those agentswent.

CBP seeks to deter and disrupt human smuggling activities by transnational criminal organizations to ensure our personnel are properly equipped to maintain border security, Davis wrote.

There is no sign that Washington headquarters is interested in reinforcing the beleaguered Big Bend outposts. Short of interest or much knowledge about whats happening there, Big Bend will remain largely defenseless in a migration crisis that has arrived there and shows only signs of sharp escalation.

The views expressed here are the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by Homeland Security Today, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints in support of securing our homeland. To submit a piece for consideration, email[emailprotected]Oureditorial guidelines can be found here.

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PERSPECTIVE: Migration Overwhelming Once-Quiet Big Bend Sector Homeland Security Today - HSToday

One of the primary goals of our nations immigration policy is to protect refugees. The Biden administration announced Monday that it is raising the refugee ceiling to 62,500 people this fiscal year. Our nation has a long history of providing relief to individuals seeking protection in America because of persecution in their home country. While support for refugees is consistent with our values, the federal government must provide additional federal dollars to states which will shoulder much of the financial burden in providing services for these refugees. Many states are already struggling with the financial strain caused by COVID.

In his address before Congress last week, President Joe BidenJoe BidenCensus results show White House doubling down on failure Poll: Americans back new spending, tax hikes on wealthy, but remain wary of economic impact True immigration reform requires compromise from both sides of the aisle MORE urged members of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. This has been a common refrain for over 30 years and yet time and time again nothing happens in our Congress. Today the need for immigration reform in this country has never been greater.Unfortunatelythe possibility of legislation has never appeared more unrealistic.

The Biden administrations reaction to the recent surge on our southern border has left many Americans doubting the ability of the federal government to successfully solve the immigration stalemate. The administration apparently did not anticipate how public comments from the Biden camp during the 2020 presidential campaign would encourage migrants in poorersections of Mexico and Central America, many of them children, to flock to our southern border. Surges like the current one place an incredible and unfair burden on state resources.

Republican members of Congress and certain Republican state officials have publicly condemned the administrations response to the present border crisis. To be sure some of the criticism is warranted but according to the Biden administration the blame rightly belongs to the previous administration for their failure to cooperate during the presidential transition. Whoever is to blame,the finger pointing has to stop. Rather than gloat about thepresident's perceivedfailure, the American public would be better served if Republicans began work with Democrats to find common ground and pass comprehensive immigration legislation.

Seven years ago, my friend and colleague David Strange and I formally proposed a conservative and compassionate approach to immigration reform. We acknowledged that not all aspects of our immigration systemisbroken, but that adjustments wereabsolutely necessary. We suggested thenthatthe foundation of any reform has to be border security. Our government has the right to determine who is in our country and the obligation to secure our borders from those who would harm us.

I, and others, have never been a proponent of a border wall. It would be more effective and far less expensive in discouraging illegal crossings if we were to take advantage of the natural border terrain, useperimeter fencing and other similar barriers, rely on greater use of technology such as night sensors, drones and motion detectors and employ more border patrol agents. Whatever the method, border security must be the top priority.

But our immigration policy has to recognize certain economic realities. The truth is, immigrant workers are desperately needed in the farming, hospitality and food service industries. Biden estimates there are nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country today. Our government is not able to remove them all at once, and even if it could do so, it would certainly devastate certain industries. Yet we cannot allow undocumented immigrants to continue to live in the shadows in an undocumented status. It is far more humane and better policy to identify those individuals who qualify and put them into some type of temporary legal status. If, for example, a migrant has a criminalrecordthen that individualhas toleave America. We should welcome those with a clean record and specific skills useful to our economy.

Additionally, our government should revamp the visa process to better deal with individuals who come into this country legally on either a student or work visa, but whothen remain here in an unlawful status once the visa expires. The federal government should ensure that technology is available to make it easier for employers and school administrators to keep track of those here on a work or student visa.

We also need to mandate tougher workplace enforcement. Mostimmigrantscome from countries where jobs are scarce; they come to America to work. Some employers often take advantage of their needs in order to hire cheaper labor. Those that do should be fined if they knowingly and repeatedly hire undocumented migrants. Through advancingtechnologywe can and should make it easier and more cost effective for employers to verify the legal status of those who they seek to hire.

There appears to be serious disagreementover whether the United States should ultimately provide a pathway to citizenship to immigrants who come into the country unlawfully, or who overstay their visas. Biden believes we should. I have no disagreement with that, but the federal government should only grant citizenship to those who meet certain qualifications and conditions spelled out in the legislation. Most undocumented immigrants come to America only to seek a better life for their families, not to become U.S. citizens. Many would be content knowing they will not be deported because they are here in some type of legal status. If, however, lawmakers vote to provide a pathway to citizenship, the law should also require the immigrant to pay afine and back taxes(thus there can be no claim of amnesty) and to wait for a reasonableperiod of timeto begin the citizenship process. This ensures that others waiting patiently outside the U.S., and whofollowedthe rules, are not disadvantaged but treated fairly.

As for children brought to the United States by their parents who entered unlawfully,theso calleddreamers, I support finding a way for them to stay in America under some type of legal status that includes a pathway to citizenship. For many of these younger individuals, America is the only home they have ever known. They should not have to pay fortheactionsof their parents.

Former President George W. Bush, recently released a book titled Out of Many, One: Portraits of Americas Immigrants. Through this book he said he hoped to humanize the debate on immigration and he called on Congress to tone down the harsh rhetoric. I know achieving the right immigration policy is hard. The subject triggers strong viewpoints because it touches upon our national security and economy, as well as our foreign policy and federalism. Discussions over immigration policy also trigger intense emotions because it potentially affects family and the very essence of who we are as a country and as a people.

The recent comments by Bush are consistent with his efforts in 2007 to encourage Congress to pass legislation, which failed in part because of Republican opposition.In order to make progress, everyonewill have tocompromise, no one should expect to get everything that they want in the legislation.Rather than continuing to operate under a patchwork network of executive orders, it is time for Congress to do its job. Members were elected to do that which is hard, yet necessary for the American people. If members of this Congress cannot get the job done or are unwilling to do the work, then voters need to consider replacing them with members who will.

Alberto R. Gonzales is the former U.S. attorney general and counsel to the president in the George W. Bush administration. Presently he is the dean at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tennessee.

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True immigration reform requires compromise from both sides of the aisle | TheHill - The Hill

President BidenJoe BidenCensus results show White House doubling down on failure Poll: Americans back new spending, tax hikes on wealthy, but remain wary of economic impact True immigration reform requires compromise from both sides of the aisle MOREsannouncementthis week that he will increase the annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for the fiscal year has triggered predictable howls of opposition. Sen. Tom CottonTom Bryant CottonOpposition to refugees echoes one of America's most shameful moments White House defends CDC outreach to teachers union Allowing a racist slur against Tim Scott to trend confirms social media's activist bias MORE (R-Ark.) falselyclaimed that Increasing the refugee admissions cap will put American jobs and safety at risk.House Minority Whip Steve ScaliseStephen (Steve) Joseph ScaliseCNN's Jake Tapper questions giving some GOP leaders airtime Pelosi mocks House GOP looking for 'non-threatening female' to replace Liz Cheney The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Emergent BioSolutions - Can Cheney defy the odds and survive again? MORE (R-La.)tweeted,Democrats are now considering sneaking mass amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants through Congress under the cover of the budget process.

These statementsecho a shameful moment 82 years ago when Congress considered a similar proposal for Jewish children seeking refuge from Nazi Germany. In fact, on May 5, 1939,a joint subcommittee of Congress approved bipartisan legislation to help those children. What happened to the bill is a little-known but repugnant stain on American values.

In November 1938, the Reichs official antisemitism took a new turn when violent riots against Jews spread across Germany and Austria. Businesses were destroyed, synagogues burned-down, Jews beaten and murdered.But America had no room for any additional refugees. Immigration law dating back to the 1920s capped visas from Germany at 27,370 a number that was reached almost instantly at the beginning of each year.

Two members of Congress formed an unlikely political alliance to respond. Sen. Robert Wagner (D-N.Y.) was a liberal firebrand, Tammany Hall Democrat and FDR loyalist who pushed elements of the New Deal through the Senate. Rep. Edith Rogers(R-Mass.) was a conservative Republican who graduated from a Paris finishing school and become a vociferous opponent of New Deal business regulations. In February 1939, they introduced a bill to lift caps on visas from Germany.

Wagner and Rogers crafted the bill to minimize opposition. The quota would be increased by 20,000, but over a two-year period.To address fears about immigrants taking jobs, new visas would be issued only to children under the age of 14.To ensure that no federal funds were used to support the child refugees, all applicants would have to prove that they would not become charges of the state. And to minimize antisemitic backlash, the word Jewish was excluded from the bill.

With those conditions, whocould oppose increasing the cap on refugees from children imperiled by Hitlers Reich? Initially, no one publicly, at least. The bill was supported by the American Federation of Labor, the Federal Council of Churches, former Republican presidential candidate Alf Landon, former Republican Governor Robert La Follete, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and even former Republican First Lady Grace Coolidge, who announced that she and her neighbors in Northampton, Mass., would personally care for 25 of the refugee children.

On April 20, in room 412 of the Russell Senate Office Building, a joint subcommittee opened hearings on the Wagner-Rogers proposal.That day, 14 witnesses testified in support, and only one against. But as debate continued over the next few weeks, opposition was mobilized. Francis Kinnicutt, president of theAllied Patriot Society, testified that immigrants may be suffering from some disease or insanity and that we dont want to be swamped with immigrants. J.E. Nieman of the Regular Veterans Association argued:The bringing of foreigners into the United States is a direct attack against our national defense program. America doesnt need foreigners.

Despite the attacks, the joint subcommittee voted on May 5 to report Wagner-Rodgers to their full respective committees.The opposition became louder and uglier.The very next day, Sen. Robert Reynolds (D-N.C.) strode to a stage at the Hotel Astor in New York and proclaimed opposition to the bill.Save America for Americans. The danger is from within. At a Washington cocktail party, Mrs. James H. Houghteling, wife of the commissioner of immigration, remarked that the problem with the bill was that 20,000 children would all too soon grow up into 20,000 ugly adults.

The bill was effectively killed in a feat that only the United States Congress could have pulled off having it both ways. On June 20 the full Senate Immigration Committee passed Wagner-Rogers but with a not-so-slight catch: 20,000 children would begranted visas, but only as part of the existing quota of 27,370. America would open its doors to them but shut it to most of the Jews still trying to flee Europe.Wagner was so enraged with the amendment that he ended up opposing his own bill.

We know how tragically this story ends for the vast majority of Jewish children facing persecution, oppression and tyranny in Nazi Germany: 1.5 million perished.

So, when I hear opponents of a modest plan to add 62,500 refugee visas forpeople facing life-threatening persecution, I think about what happened in May 1939 and the weeks that followed, when Congress failed so catastrophically.

Steve IsraelSteven (Steve) J. IsraelOpposition to refugees echoes one of America's most shameful moments White House races clock to beat GOP attacks Overnight Defense: Biden's stalled Pentagon nominee gets major support | Blinken presses China on North Korea ahead of meeting | Army will not return medals to soldier Trump pardoned MORE represented New York in the House over eight terms and was chairman with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. He is now the director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. You can follow his updates@RepSteveIsrael.

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Opposition to refugees echoes one of America's most shameful moments | TheHill - The Hill