‘The Statue of Liberty Must Be Crying With Shame’
Republican leaders say they simply want to tighten security to keep America safe. That’s an echo of what American officials claimed in the late 1930s and early 1940s as they blocked the entry of Jewish refugees.
Breckinridge Long, then a senior State Department official in charge of visas, warned that Nazi spies were trying to enter the U.S. as refugees. In the name of security, he established vetting rules so strict that few Jews could pass.