The Need for Immigration Triage

FDR turned away German Jews seeking asylum prior to WWII.
Are we going to repeat that shameful episode?

I'm hearing a lot of pushback from the left over Trump's policy of placing a priority on admitting Christian refugees from places like Syria, calling it a "religious" test for admittance. It's no such thing anymore than it is a policy of excluding people by nationality. After all, we wouldn't have imported large numbers of Germans or Japanese or even Italians during WWII. And folks, we are at war with ISIS. It's just that they've declared war on us and our past president kept pretending they hadn't.


Prioritizing Christians from Syria would be rather like putting a priority on Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide by Hutu forces. Would liberals have complained that it was a "racial" test? It's no such thing. It's saving the people who are in the greatest danger and making sure you don't "rescue" the very people that want to slaughter them. 

And don't tell me there's no risk. A Coptic Christian from Egypt was beheaded in New York by a Muslim jihadi from Egypt. We've seen Muslim extremists come to the States and carry out honor killings against American Muslim girls. Just one incident like this is too many. 

We need a common sense immigration and refugee policy. What we have now is muddle-headed chaos based, not on the threat to refugees, but on the immediate past president's need for virtue signaling. People are dying. We can help. Saving Christians isn't about a religious test. It's triage. It's like if a boat sinks and rescuers start plucking the drowning people out of the water first and THEN going around to pull out the people wearing life jackets. It's a needs test, not a religious test. Christians are being murdered and persecuted because of their religion. How hard is that to understand?

© 2017 by Tom King