In November 1938, German paramilitary forces and civilians carried out one of history’s most famous pogroms. Devastation reigned. After that night, which we now know as Kristallnacht, more than 100,000 fleeing German Jews applied for American visas. Most applicants were unsuccessful, largely due to American bigotry. Less than one year later, the U.S. turned away more than 900 fleeing Jews on board the St. Louis. The ship was forced to return to Europe, where more than a quarter of its passengers were killed in the Holocaust.
In December 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,400 Americans. Thee months later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the incarceration of Japanese Americans. More than 110,000 people—including at least 30,000 children—were forced into interior camps, many without any plumbing or cooking facilities. Interned families began using the phrase “shikata ga nai”—in English, “it cannot be helped”—to express their resignation to their fate.
And in November 2015, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant carried out near-simultaneous attacks on six sites across Paris, France. Using automatic weapons and explosive devices, the attackers killed 129 civilians. A Syrian passport was found next to one of the dead suicide bombers.
And so it goes.
Within days, 25 Republican governors pledged to block the entry of Syrian refugees into their states. Some urged the Obama Administration to stop admitting Syrians at all, and Senator Ted Cruz announced that he would introduce legislation banning Muslim Syrian refugees from entering the United States.
To be clear, the Constitution vests the federal government—not states—with power over immigration, naturalization, and deportation. And Congress itself gave the President expansive authority to handle “an unforeseen emergency refugee situation,” such as one involving “grave humanitarian concerns,” when it passed the Refugee Act of 1980.
President Obama termed efforts to prevent refugees from entering the United States “shameful.” Senator Elizabeth Warren agreed, saying on the Senate floor: “We are not a nation that delivers children back into the hands of ISIS murderers because some politician doesn’t like their religion, and we are not a nation that backs down out of fear.”
The grave of John F. Kennedy, lit in the warmth of an eternal flame, bears a quote from Aeschylus. But today, as our nation’s shoulders droop under the strain of fear, hatred, and bigotry, different words from the same Greek playwright are perhaps more instructive: “Time, as he grows old, teaches all things.”
If only we could learn.
From Whence We Came 