For comparison, the chance of being struck by lightning is about 1 in 960,000 per year.
And the chance of an American being murdered by a fellow citizen is about 1 in 22,000 per year.
Refugee status is the hardest way to get into the United States. Tourist, business, and student visas are all easier to get. Even illegal immigration is easier.
Applicants have to go through interview after interview, by both international and American agencies. The screenings aren’t perfect, but they’re very good.
.. To believe that refugees are dangerous, you have to believe that ISIS operatives are so incredibly smart that they can fool interviewer after interviewer, but so incredibly stupid that they pick the single hardest way of getting into America.
.. Nazi Germany was an existential threat, but al Qaeda and ISIS aren’t. They present a serious danger, but they can’t invade D.C. and overthrow the government. However, they might be able to manipulate America into self-defeating actions.
Seeing Trump’s first week, they must be thrilled.
The lesson of the years we have spent fighting terrorism since Sept. 11 is that every time we depart from our values we worsen the very problem we are trying to contain. We must never allow our values to become the collateral damage of a search for greater security. Shutting our door to refugees or discriminating among them is not our way, and does not make us safer. Acting out of fear is not our way. Targeting the weakest does not show strength.
If we send a message that it is acceptable to close the door to refugees, or to discriminate among them on the basis of religion, we are playing with fire. We are lighting a fuse that will burn across continents, inviting the very instability we seek to protect ourselves against.
.. we do it to uphold the United Nations conventions and standards we fought so hard to build after World War II, for the sake of our own security.
If we Americans say that these obligations are no longer important, we risk a free-for-all in which even more refugees are denied a home, guaranteeing more instability, hatred and violence.
If we create a tier of second-class refugees, implying Muslims are less worthy of protection, we fuel extremism abroad, and at home we undermine the ideal of diversity cherished by Democrats and Republicans alike: “America is committed to the world because so much of the world is inside America,” in the words of Ronald Reagan. If we divide people beyond our borders, we divide ourselves.
The lesson of the years we have spent fighting terrorism since Sept. 11 is that every time we depart from our values we worsen the very problem we are trying to contain. We must never allow our values to become the collateral damage of a search for greater security. Shutting our door to refugees or discriminating among them is not our way, and does not make us safer. Acting out of fear is not our way. Targeting the weakest does not show strength.
Trump’s Talk About Muslims Led Acting Attorney General to Defy Ban
As Republicans seethed over President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration in early 2015, Senator Jeff Sessions sharply questioned Sally Q. Yates about whether she had the independent streak needed to be the Justice Department’s second in command.
.. “If the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no?” Mr. Sessions asked during a confirmation hearing for Ms. Yates.
.. President Trump’s own words convinced her that his executive order on immigration was intended to single out Muslims, senior officials said. Hours after she refused to defend that order, Mr. Trump fired her.
.. The Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department had reviewed the order and signed off on its legality. But Ms. Yates and her staff lawyers believed that the department had to consider the intent of the order, which she said appeared intended to single out people based on religion.
“We have comments from the president about what this is supposed to do,” Ms Yates said in one meeting on Monday, according to two people involved in the discussions. She later added, “The intent was clear from the face of it.”
.. Mr. Trump had campaigned on a promise to single out Muslims for immigration restrictions. One of his advisers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, said in an interview that Mr. Trump wanted a Muslim ban but needed “the right way to do it legally.” Mr. Trump said in a later interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christian refugees would be given priority for entry visas to the United States.
.. Ms. Yates considered resigning, the officials said, but concluded that doing so would leave the decision to whomever succeeded her, even if in a temporary capacity.
.. Mr. Sessions, an immigration hard-liner, argued that the Justice Department should have refused to support Mr. Obama’s executive action liberalizing immigration policy.
Ms. Yates promised that she would stand up to the president, if necessary.
.. Last year, Ms. Yates and Ms. Lynch earned the ire of Democrats — including many in the department — for not intervening and prohibiting the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, from sending a letter to Congress in the final days of the presidential campaign.
To Make the World Better, Think Small
Every charity worth its salt knows that people are more likely to give in response to a child who has lost her parents than to the news of thousands of victims of a tragedy. The example above of Syria is a case in point. International philanthropic support increased only after a news photo spread around the world of a small boy dead on the beach ..
.. The 1 > 1 million axiom is more than a fund-raising secret. It is a formula for each of us in an existentialist funk to connect to our deepest values and apply them to a hurting world.
.. There is an old joke that a Marxist is someone who loves humanity in groups of one million or more.
.. Billions have been pulled out of starvation-level poverty because of free trade, my data say.
.. I crave forgiveness and love; I get it by forgiving and loving others.