In U.S. and Europe, Migration Conflict Points to Deeper Political Problems

The key issue is what the article calls the “old”concept of national identity. It isn’t trivial that the French, for example, have a commission to keep the French language secure from importing words from other languages. The Germans have their concept of “volk” meaning Germanic folk traditions. The U.S. may be a country of immigrants, but it’s identity was founded by Europeans on the Mayflower, and our largely British founding fathers. All these countries will accept immigrants up to the point that their national identities feel challenged; beyond that point they try to push back. Nationalism, rather than racism, is the driving force.

If immigration numbers are down why is Spanish becoming so prevalent in this area? Billboards,radio,TV and in sections of every town only Spanish is heard.There are few signs of assimilation as there is no need to so for these folks. We have parallel societies forming in our community.

The conventions like the 1951 treaty on refugees were written with Europeans in mind. Few amendments have been added since then although the world has changed a great deal in terms of mobility and communications. America, Australia and Europe have treated refugee protection as part of their immigration policy − immigration law is about controlling entry; refugee law should be about offering protection. Sadly, black and brown people are not quite human enough for Trump, Udo Voigt,Nick Griffin, Bruno Valkeniers, Tomio Okamura, Marine Le Pen, Christian Strache , Italy's Northern League and the Dutch Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders and others to deserve protection .

The socio-economic level attained in Europe (and copied In the US by the Europeans who came here) was attained by science (industrial revolution), by war many centuries of conflict beween the Lords and the serfs. I am from Spain in my family there are several casualties during a civil war and I got the social benefits ffrom the sacrifices of my relatives. I am quite versed with European history and somewhat with American history. And I know one's historical background has some influence in an individual behavior.... The people immigrating here in California often are not of European roots--so other history, other behavior... But it is the combination of an individual personality and his social experiences that contribute to the fabric of society. About California, I am quite illiterate of Asian History for instance. There are many Asian immigrants here and I am fairly familiar with their social behavior because I have intermingled, work with them. They behave often quite differently to someone white (European), for instance. But it is the social behavior (at a collective level that has created the type of society that they want to live in) so there is a paradox here--they want a society with European social behavior and keep their Asian social behavior. Vow!!!! As another reader said --Americans or Europeans do not want hordes of people coming over and transforming their societies like the ones they left behind.

Many of these comments take me back to my American History class in high school. I recall seeing reprints of speeches and political cartoons about the flood of immigrants passing through Ellis Island. The nativism reflected in some of these comments and what was said more than a century ago are strikingly similar. Back in the 19th century people fled famine (Ireland) and counties that were totalitarian (Russia); where your choice of religion or ethnicity could get you killed (pogroms). People are fleeing Central America to escape brutal corruption and and violence. Who can credibly deny that the American experience is worse for wear because of immigrants who yearn to make a better life. trump, ryan and mcConnell could profit from reading bush's 2007 state of the union speech. Love does trump hate: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiat...

Y’know, climate change isn’t going to make this issue disappear. If the Earth is indeed getting hotter, then we’re going to see more migration from the unbearably hot regions and greater pressure in food & water supplies elsewhere. The gradual move to AI in every level of employment is not going to help this either - more people unemployed, more people needing support, societies and governments ever more pressed. I fail to see any optimism in the future really, and I think something human and terrible will happen somewhere in the next decade. What next after migrant internment camps? Where is this anger and anxiety taking us?

How about there is just too many people in this world. The places that people are immigrating from just have too many people. It all comes down to population. El Salavodor is the most densely populated country in this hemisphere. There just isn’t enough resources to go around yet they still have big families. That is the problem.

"The anger, research suggests, often stems less from migration specifically than from a broader anxiety over social change". Quite so. Important in understanding the "anxiety" is to witness the effects of previous waves of immigration. Typical is an industrial city in England where I spent most of my life. Today, if you travel south from the northern borders of the city, it is like many other British towns. Cross the center to see a mixture of pedestrians and shoppers - some European and many of Indian origin. Now continue south out of the city to enter an area several miles across. It must be like many places in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. It is the result of uncontrolled or poorly administered immigration to Britain for decades. The arguments in favor of the need for younger people and workers was valid but there was no discussion of the social effects of upending some cities. In the end, the real damage comes from too many immigrants than an existing society can properly absorb. The labelling (for years) of critics of excessive immigration as racists (and some are) was a convenient way to shut down proper discussion. That stifling of "anger" and "anxiety" is now over.

And the question remains, can we be humane in our understanding and compassion for those fleeing countries so deeply damaged their citizens have little choice but to flee to save their lives. Can we as yet more fortunate nations work to help to solve the issues, many of which we helped create through our own companies and governments policies, to keep now desparate people to remain in their homes? Or will we continue to show the blind eye of self serving greed and self righteousness and scapegoat our less fortunate humans to maintain our self-indulgent all for only one life style. I maintain that we are foolish indeed to not recognize that we could so easily be in these immigrant/refugees shoes.

The article is good but doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know. And it doesn't mention the possibility of the US and European nations trying to improve conditions in the countries these people are coming from so that they don't have to emigrate. They don't want to leave and if the conditions were better, they would not. Syria is the obvious example, Assad should have been removed years ago and the rebels didn't need much help but the US and European nations didn't have the courage to help them. Other countries also could be improved.

Somehow all of these articles start the "analysis" after, not before, they conclude that it's all cultural or racial fear of change or loss of control, etc. I would like to see that premise (and that's what something is when it occurs before the analysis) argued, because I don't think it fits the facts. The huge numbers were streaming over the border in the late nineties but especially in the early 2000s before the recession. That's the same time frame when all powers that be, both "sides" were arguing pro-globalization as well. What changed was a jobless recovery (after the dot com bust) followed immediately by the biggest crash and depression since the 1930s. The more recent crisis was fully in Europe and then subsequently with unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle at our border. One of the very real differences between these influxes (both abroad and in the U.S.) and the peak influx of undocumented persons in 2003-2006, was that these people are majority qualifiers for protection under the Refugee Convention, whereas the peak influx was plainly not, and was largely solicited by U.S. employers looking for cheap labor. The problem is, neither "side" of the argument right now either in Europe or the U.S. wants to put the premises that caused the ill will -- the economic philosophies by the globalizers here and the technocrats in Europe -- up for a vote, preferring to force us to argue about "what kind of nation we want to be" and preaching to the extremes.

Two points. First, notice that deterrence--in the case of the US--and prevention--in the case of Europe--have an inhumane element to them. In the US, parents bringing their children with them when crossing the border without authorization are separated from one another. Europe has "pursued policies that deter asylum claims by making the crossing too dangerous or impossible for migrants to attempt" (apparently, in Sudan border agents use torture to prevent migration to Europe). Moreover, both the US and Europe conveniently ignore the fact that their policies towards resp. Latin America (in the '70s and '80s) and Africa (going back centuries) have let to these crises. It's a classic case of the chickens coming home to roost. As for "the sense of threat or a loss of control" of one's heritage, both in the US and certainly in Europe that sense is primarily felt by a certain segment of the White community (in the US, I don't see many Black, Asian, or Native Americans coming out against (il)legal immigration). This fact leads me to argue that the portrayal of the US as a melting pot is a farce, a feel-good story simply told to demonstrate how exceptional the US--presumably--is. The events of the last 18 months have demonstrated that the US is all but exceptional.

Most Americans are all for helping people, but the $ and € will go much further, 10x or more, in helping people in their home regions rather than paying for all of their expenses in the US and EU. Also, there is a poignant expression, 'Catch me a fish and I eat for a day, teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.' The current migration system only catches the fish for the migrants and does not teach people how to fish. The immigrant exporting countries need to get their acts together and offer their citizens stability so that their citizens can remain in their home countries and not feel that their only option is to migrate to the US and the EU. The majority of EU and US citizens say enough is enough and finally want immigration control and controlled borders. They want immigration to be legal and immigrants to be invited. They want to maintain their national and cultural identity. What is wrong with that? It is better to try to replicate the conditions of the US and EU in immigrant exporting countries rather than slowly but surely turning the US and EU into the failed societies from where the immigrants came. The citizens of the US and the EU have a right to have their interests represented and not only the interests of the migrants, noncitzens all.

Only since WWII have we seen significant populations of immigrants refusing to assimilate into the new country's culture and learn their language. When it was only the elderly and women who stayed at home, the assimilation barrier wasn't that big a deal. But now, entire neighborhoods in American cities and in Europe governments openly admit that there are places where the police simply do not go, especially at night. The ''leaders'' who let this happen time after time are the worst that country has to offer. This is a huge part of why Brexit and the Trump election happened, and why Italy and Austria are becoming nationalist as well.

My wife and I decided to have two kids, in our thirties. This seemed, rightly or wrongly, to be the right thing to do. We both believe that overpopulation is a big problem. In the Middle East, Africa, and south of the border, birth rates are much higher than in the U.S. and in Europe. Herein lies the real problem, too many people having too many kids they cannot take care of. Read Gallup and Pew as well as climate news relating to immigration. We will see a flood in the future, largely driven by countries which and people who refuse to limit child production.

Many sanctimoniously express an obligation of developed countries to accept people fleeing economic privation in their home countries. Often it is argued that the unskilled, uneducated immigrants can provide a benefit to an economy by doing the “underclass” work that natives will not. Failing to carefully control economic immigration is naïve. First, there are simply too many people facing privation around the world for developed countries to handle. Many are dying in pursuing the false hope that they can make it. With a flood of unskilled and uneducated, their assimilation can be elusive and supporting them can be a net economic drain. The push back gives rise to ugly nationalism in the destination countries. Importantly, championing unfettered immigration is not as moral as it sounds. Such immigration can be viewed as harvesting the most motivated inhabitants from desperate places to provide host countries with low-cost docile service laborers. What is never discussed is that encouraging the most motivated immigrants has the effect of gutting the countries they leave. It leaves places like El Salvador and Honduras as wretched places. The most compassionate answer would be to discourage economic migrants into the US from Central America and, instead, for the America to organize a bold effort to provide the aid it would take to turn all of Central America into viable countries as is, say, Costa Rica. The mindset should be fixing the problems at their source.

"In the United States, in fact, border crossings have been low for years …" Most of the undocumented came from rural Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador , and Honduras where the schools did not go above the 6th grade. Their limited education makes it hard for them to assimilate in our modern country. And, there are so many undocumented migrants that they do not have to. They live together, watch and listen to the same Spanish language media, work on a landscaping, cleaning, or building crew for a boss who finds the jobs and pays them a pittance. The result is that many of them continue to sound and behave like they arrived just recently, giving the impression that illegal migration has not let up.

Those opposed to the exclusion of immigrants from the borders of their country should think ahead to the likelihood that global warming will put hundreds of thousands of the desperate, hungry and thirsty on the move to find food and water. How generous will our country be?

I write this from Sarajevo, away for work, a city with a pluralistic society that underwent unspeakable trauma during the longest siege of a city in the modern period. My Bosnian colleagues have all suffered either the siege or forced migration from armed conflict. I can hear the call to prayer from the mosque as a I write, looking out my window to a beautiful synagogue next door while both Orthodox and Catholic people flourish side by side in this city. Once Muslims saved the sacred Sephardic Haggadah from Nazi destruction, here. I simply cannot imagine not helping these people back in the 1990s, knowing now the stories of their loss, suffering, and humanity in the ensuing 20 years. This article refers to the role of political conflict, but never forget the civilians in the wars and armed conflicts. Comments thus far have jobs foregrounded as a reason to turn refugees away. Humanitarian food relief, or flight as refugees, kept death at bay for those with hope for 1445 days. To my fellow citizens in the land of the free and the home of the brave, please remember: "Today the eyes of all people are upon us, and our government in every branch, at any level, must be as a city on a hill" J.F. Kennedy ... "A tall proud city built on rocks, stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace, and if it had to be city walls, the walls had doors, open to anyone with the will and the heart together." R. Reagan

The opposition to immigration in both the U.S. and E.U. is driven by regions that are conservative, religious, and largely left behind by rapid economic globalization. Both white, Christian, mainly rural Trump supporters in America, and Poles, Hungarians, and Italians who back nationalist, populist parties punch downwards at immigrants, easy scapegoats. Global neoliberal capitalism has created free movement of investment capital, allowing German, French, and British banks to dominate the Eastern and Southern European economies, as Wall Street dominates the American economy. The increase in free movement of global labor has a small, more positive than negative, impact on the host economies. The problem is, as Trump and the European populists fail to improve their economies, their supporters may turn even further to the right, as Germans abandoned the nationalist President Hindenburg for Chancellor and later Fuhrer Hitler.

I am a native born Latino (citizen). I am in my mid 60s and wonder how all of those hankering for open borders, et al, would react to 10% of Asia's population finding its way (legal immigrants or illegal immigrants) to the US borders. I suspect the existing Black and Latino communities would be less receptive to having 300,000,000 "refugees" on our shores. That would automatically move them (in demographic terms) to a much lower "totem-pole" position. Thus, in theory, if they object to that movement, would they be classified as "racist"? I suspect, that at the least, the left would not use that term.

Why is it so hard for the Left to understand that the current socio-political systems in the U.S. and E.U. represent a couple of centuries of gradual and incrementalist progress away from the dark old days of feudalism, religious fanaticism, aristocratic genetic folly, and finally, the social-democratic violence of the Bolsheviks, the NAZIS of German and the Fascists of Italy. Why risk all that Euro-Anglo-American people have endured and overcome by welcoming millions of people with a grudge against who have experienced the failure of democracy in their own birthplaces and are likely to have been fed a diet of anti-colonialism in their school system?

In Europe, the immigrants are a humanitarian cause - war. In the USA the illegal aliens from Mexico have no issues, the just self-righteous attitude that they can... Mexicans are seeking a lazy way out, they don't believe in the rule of law, it's not for them. Americans despise their entitled behavior. Like thieves breaking into your house. Something wrong with applying legally?

When my father came to this country as a 40 year old refugee from Nazi Germany with my mother and me in tow, he saved string. He arrived nearly penniless, had very little English except what he could discern as a result of his knowledge of Latin and found a job at a May Company Department Store as a stock boy in their stockroom. Thrifty by nature and upbringing, he was astounded to learn that large quantities of string were being discarded every day, and began saving the string for reuse later. For his trouble, he got laughed at by the other stock boys and his boss, all of them native-born Americanos. Skip ahead a few years, and my father and mother had opened a tiny candy store where they and several employees produced some very nice chocolates, which in turn ultimately enabled them to purchase a house and pay my way through college. The May Company has since gone out of business, and I guess the stock boys who laughed at my father went out of business with it. Doubtless, many of them who still survive and their children are currently avid supporters of Trump. Not all of the refugees I have known made out as well as my father, but many did and some made out much better. If I was in put in charge of attracting more people for some sparsely populated parts of this country, I’d look for refugees from persecution who know how to save string. Trump supporters -- contemptuous, jealous and fearful of refugees -- would be low on my shopping list.

Yet another fuzzy NYT article on immigration. The numbers may be down from their absolute highs, but the numbers are still large. We cannot possibly absorb everyone from Latin America who wants to come here, in addition to the thousands who overstay visas from other lands. Europe found out the hard way, but it was perfectly predictable from day one. Most of the people coming in are not refugees, but economic migrants. Most do not have education and are unlikely to intergrate. What Europe has is several million young (mostly men) with no education and no prospects. They will end up in a ghetto and end up bitter. They have fundamentally changed Europe and everyone had to make adjustments for them instead of the other way around. Everyone from Africa cannot come to Europe. The similarity between both these groups is that they have too many children and they come from countries where corruption is endemic. Sadly, this was easy to predict, but like climate change, adjustments that are made are too little, too late. The one thing we should be supporting above all else is family planning, but that won't happen in America.

Although this article contains a number of useful comparisons between the EU and the US, on the whole it is a piece with the disingenuous argument that you are either for all immigration or you are a fear mongering racist. It is exactly this false choice that continues to drive the deep polarization we are experiencing from this issue. I believe that America is an immigrant nation. I believe that America should continue to be an immigrant nation. I deplore that we have greatly become an illegal-immigrant nation. I believe that we must cease to be an illegal-immigrant nation. This is where the center in this debate is located. Debate the laws, enact the laws, enforce the laws.

Here is an idea. The U.S. can set up clinics in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The clinics would offer $1,000 cash to any man or woman under the age of 30 who agrees to a long-term sterilization procedure and to forego all any asylum claims in the future. (Details negotiable) No coercion. Just incentives. Total cost: $10 billion or less. Immigration problem solved.

My feeling on this article is that the Times reporters are taking a pretty sharp anti-Trump angle, and I'm fine with that. However, you're ignoring a reason that at least some liberals are concerned about immigration: the environment. In 1970, California had a population of 10 million people. Now we have more than 40 million! Roads are constantly jammed, services are strained, and resources like water and housing are increasingly scant. I appreciate the diversity of immigrants and the hard work ethic they bring with them, but it pains me to not see leading environmental organizations chiming into this debate with this sad truth: if we want to combat climate change we also need to combat illegal immigration. Times reporters, please consider telling the whole story rather than just the most provocative angle. As fun as it is to bash the Trump administration, this issue deserves light on its multiple facets.

Recently, In a piece on the Reuters website, they said "Germany sees migration-related spending of 78 billion euros through 2022". 13 Billion Euros of that is toward learning the language and other "integrative measures". 78 BILLION EUROS - for about one million people? Something seems very wrong here. Surely 78 BILLION euros would have gone a long way in improving the places/living conditions from which most people are fleeing. At some point, the U.S. and Europe need to attack the problem at the root - not just when it crosses their borders.

I'm fine with the immigration levels we've had over the last 50 years, basically since the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act remade our immigration system. It seems to me our country has done impressively well during that time, and I don't really see why we'd want to undo that. But if you still want to cut back on immigration, there's a better way to do it than breaking up families and building walls through Texas ranches and national parks. People stopped coming here in large numbers from places like Western Europe and Japan when those countries developed stable governments and growing economies after World War II. We helped that happen with programs like the Marshall Plan. People would stop coming here from places like Central America if those countries developed stable governments and prosperous economies. Maybe we should have a Marshall Plan for Central America. Net immigration from Mexico dropped drastically after NAFTA improved the Mexican economy in the 1990s and early 2000s. It turns out that trade treaties aren't just about trade, they're also about reducing migration. Maybe instead of tearing up NAFTA we should invite Central American countries to negotiate their own membership in NAFTA. It seems to me that helping poor countries develop would be a much more effective, not to mention much more humane, way to deter mass migration to the U.S. politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com

When we have addressed homelessness for not just the unemployed but also those working minimum wage jobs, when we have cured extremely poor rural Mississippians of hook worm and when have addressed the fact that 1000s of American children go to bed hungry, then I will consider immigration. Do not overlook the economic issues.

The immigration pressure is caused by open “boarders” as much as open “borders”. Millions of people living in poverty in developing countries understand that they can receive free room, board, and more in developed countries. Upon arrival in a developed country, they are immediately cared for by a social safety net that provides cost-free minimum levels of food, shelter, education, and medical care in a relatively safe environment. Even the worst poverty in the U.S. is still better than current life for most people living in developing countries. We can focus on the push, but let’s not forget the pull.

The policy of separating migrant children apprehended at the border from their parents is a U.S. District Court for the Central District of California policy, not a Trump administration policy. In 2015, the Central District Court ruled that migrant children cannot be held in custody with their parents. This is why ICEW separated migrant children from their parents at Border Patrol Processing centers and released them to Office of Refugee Resettlement centers, which are not detention centers. Now the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California has ordered the Trump administration to stop separating children from their parents and reunite those already sent to the ORR centers with their parents. Faced with contradictory court rulings, the Trump administration has indicated it will comply with the Southern District Court Ruling, which permits it to do what it has always wanted to do—hold migrant children and migrant parents together in family detention centers until criminal, deportation or asylum proceeding against the parents are completed. This is similar to the proposed European Union solution, which is to hold migrants in detention centers while deciding which of them qualify for refugee status.

Legal immigration has always been the American way. Obviously, illegal migration cause hugh disruption to the American social system. The strain has damaged schools and neighborhoods. The Nations that are being asked to change its immigration to accommodate Illegal migration are being changed forever and not for the best.

"In the United States, in fact, border crossings have been low for years" "The anger, research suggests, often stems less from migration specifically than from a broader anxiety over social change and racism." I look at immigration as a positive force for the US. There is strength in numbers. Europe, and Japan are both losing population and without immigration, their countries will fade in significance. Racism is a waste of energy if one considers the positives of diversity such as a more highly trained workforce (Silicon Valley), people to work the farms that feed us, people to take the low end jobs that we need. Many of the inequities that people complain about such as taking govt welfare could be solved by changing laws and establishing quotas that potential immigrants can count on if they qualify by set standards.

The cause of immigration is right before our eyes. People migrate because they perceive it is impossible to live where they are at. In the a 18th and 19th centuries terrible famines caused waves of migration. Of course political forces or economic incentives caused other movements. The wars in the Middle East have made entire cities and provinces very difficult to live in. Central America has its incessant violence and civil wars. We have got to figure out a way to help rebuild communities. Very difficult I know. Compared to the Marshall Plan this is way more complicated. Foreign Aid must find its way to the problem areas and not into pockets of government officials. Cutting off aid will only make things worse.

Left out : 1. Economic integration Take the case of Germany, a country with an unemployment rate of 3.4%. It took in more than 1 million refuges 2015-16. 3 years later, only 26% are employed. A staggering 74% remains unemployed Neither the vaunted German apprenticeship system, nor extensive and costly Government programs succeeded in integrating those refugees into a modern industrial society - with record low unemployment. The result is a permanent class of unemployed, increasingly bitter class of most single young men. Left out: 2. Population density The population density of Italy is higher than that of China. Germany is a country smaller than the US State of Montana. Its wave of immigration 2015-2016 is , area wise, was the equivalent pf 30 million immigrants streaming in the US in one year. Left out : 3. Percent of foreign born - and cultural impact Sweden - a country that historically was a homogeneous society with negligible immigration in one generation moved to having higher percentage of foreign born population than the US . A country that throughout its entire history has dealt with immigration - and was build by immigrants. The social disruptions are consequently much deeper in Sweden than in the US

Taub and Fisher assert that the current political furor over immigration likely has more do with concerns over race and ethnic identity than with actual cross border population flows. Proponents of open boarders reflexively ascribe racist motives to those with opposing views. Their analysis completely misses the wage lowering and job displacing effects of unconstrained migration, and the impact on the nation's limited resources in the of areas housing, water, healthcare, education, and urban space.

Every year the U.S. president sets a limit on asylum seekers, which Congress then approves. That limit is typically between 50 - 100K. What happens when 10 million legitimate asylum seekers spend $2,000 to reach the U.S. border directly, or via Mexico? We can’t legally turn them away, but the numbers exceed the set limits. Border security, processing centers, faster adjudication of cases, legal limits, etc. are all necessary, but insufficient as long as: 1. The current asylum treaty applies 2. Developing countries have higher violence, poverty, and repression than the U.S. We need a new approach that may include increased development aid and/or forceful intervention in failed countries whose populations are a potential threat to the US.

I, being an European, share your intervention. Your view about EU*s stance is shared as well. In doing so you showed the basic EU problem, the gigantic economic/financial distance between the old seven founding fathers and the newcomers after the breakdown of the Iron curtain. Within these old seven we have the same distinction as you have at the one side the idea that solidarity/freedom/equality will govern human dealings and at the other side of the spectrum the idea that all our dealings are strictly market driven. As only these two perceptions already are basically not surmountable what to think of any other humanitarian dealings ? So I share your conclusion at the end of your article as well. It is not pessimistic but it foretells the ups and downs in our political evolutions albeit helas with a lot of human sufferings.

How long can a liberal democracy last? It appears that the generation of liberal democracies that flowered in the wake of the Second World War have gotten old an weak. Emerging strong men and despots are appealing to voters who crave little more than stability and security. Battered by climate change, economic stress and international terrorism, refugees are seeking a safe haven in places where they are less and less welcome. Citizens of the affluent western coalition are coping, to varying degrees with the same problems as the refugees, but also having to reckon with the sense that their nations are shrinking islands of peace and security amidst rising waters of uncertainty and turmoil. The rise of right wing demagoguery and concomitant decline of democracy indicates the willingness of voters to give up rights and freedoms in exchange for repressive security, and a cue for national leaders to promote paranoia to solidify their grip on power. The American liberal democracy the emerged in the Roosevelt era began to wane in 1980 with election of Reagan, lasting about two generations. It appears that our Trump induced trauma will endure until future generations of Americans can understand what happened and what should be changed.

The developed world is weary of egregious overpopulation. The U.S. and Europe should not be compelled to destroy themselves because other nations refuse to embrace family planning.

The reason the migration problem flares up is because people know that there are milions and millions of people wanting to move to first world countries. Can government benefits, whether contributed to or not, survive with open borders? I am fully aware that this publication, along with other media, entertainment industry, academics throughout the West were non-stop cheerleaders for the European surges of 2015. Time and again it was photographs of dolorous mothers with infants, and afterwards, the demographic facts came out that it was mostly young men seeking an economic future. Many are aware of the vast economic and cultural problems around this represents. Hence the hesitation and hostility. Do gays and Jews have a bright future in Europe?

Human overpopulation of the earth is driving the flow of humanity desperate to escape their places of origin and migrate to more economically favorable locations. Is this really such a difficult concept for us to wrap our heads around? Hold a glass under the tap and turn it full on. What happens, if you don't turn the tap off when the glass has filled to the brim? Overflow. 10,000 years ago our migratory hunter-gather ancestors numbered 2.6 million worldwide. Today, we number 7.45 billion. That's an increase of 2,865 times as many. That glass under the the tap has been running over for 10,000 years. Still wonder why the Med is filling up with drowned desperate migrants? No established country, with its own traditional language and culture can possible bear such an influx of outsiders for long. Have you noticed the worldwide backlash? And what is the fundamental problem? Come on, now! Too many humans are being produced and we are using up the earth's natural resources at an unsustainable rate. Who's to thank? Look toward the reproductive policies of the Catholic Church and Islam for your answer. This is not a complicated problem. There are said to be 28,000,000 migrants worldwide today, and we are adding 220,000 new humans net per day. What could possibly go wrong? Stress R Us

Can the NYT please expain how the laws related to asylum seeking differentiate between those who legally seek asylum at an official border crossing and those who cross the border illegally and are apprehended and then seek asylum? Also, explain how laws that require a person to prove they will be tortured or persecuted on the basis of religion, ethnicity,race and political beliefs are being extended to cover fear of gang violence. It is very difficult to develop an informed view of the issues without contextual information. The US must abide by its laws regarding refugees seeking asylum. But, as the article notes, at some point the numbers will exceed the capacity of a country to absorb them—for various reasons. The US and Western Europe cannot be expected to accept every migrant/refugee from Africa, the Middle East and South America, e.g., when sea rise/coastal innundation and other effects of climate change lead millions to migrate. It is a conundrum no doubt, but rational, effective, and humane policies need to be formulated in advance to deal with the inevitable limits that will need to be placed on migrants/refugees granted asylum. Some believe that a fear of domestic violence should be grounds for granting asylum. If so, then at least a third if not half (in some countries) of the world’s female population would be eligible. Should any country be required to admit them all if they seek asylum?

The differences are that there is a genuine ''crisis'' in Europe, while there is no where near one in the United States. (other than the republican administration/President flouting international and domestic law to separate babies and children from refugee seeking parents) In Europe, it is much closer and accessible by land from the Middle East (and to a lesser extent Africa) where decades long wars have ravaged and displaced large geographical areas that include failed states. They are fleeing violence, religious extremism and the incompetence or disregard of ''governments'' to offer even basic protections. They have nowhere else to go. In the United States on the the southern border, the amounts of immigrants are at a decades old lows. The crisis is hyperbole and artificially created by executive orders of the President and policy of turning away genuine refugees from South America and Mexico. Lawless actions such as separating babies and children from refugee parents is the real crisis. The failed war on drugs has left a slew of ''narco-states'' where gangs run whatever government there is. People are rightfully fleeing the violence and showing up at the border for protection. They are told by this administration that there is no space. They cross anyways and that is the problem. The situations are completely different.

The solution is simple. Rather than building walls, we should be building schools. "No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated." - Nelson Mandela

There's an economic component that is often overlooked: Visit any factory in America or Europe. You will see lots of robots and not so many people. As recently as four decades ago much of the work being done in those kinds of factories was still being done by people. However, the industrial working-class hasn't disappeared. Some still work in what few remaining factory jobs exist, or, if they're lucky, some other blue-collar occupations, but the vast majority either now work in low-wage, no-security retail positions (also on the verge of being eliminated by automation), or they don't work at all. Driving jobs employed millions of former workers and they are now about to be eliminated, too. Meanwhile, elites continue to clamor for flooding America and Europe with more cheap labor. All of these newcomers compete with our increasingly unemployable working-class over the scraps: they lower the wage rate, increase the cost of housing, and their large families crowd out resources for the offspring of our workers in our public schools. Small wonder the common people resent the newcomers. Unchecked immigration will completely destroy democracy. It will leave us with a handful of rich lords ruling over a vast horde of serfs. That's what the capitalists ultimately want: a return to feudalism. The immigrants are helping them get there. East-Asia does not allow any immigrants in. Why must the West solely bear this burden?