By: Jonathan S. Tobin – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org
Millions of economic migrants crossing the U.S. southern border want a better life. But most are neither refugees nor analogous to Jews fleeing Nazi slaughter.
After two years of pointedly ignoring a problem largely of his own making, President Joe Biden finally made a brief visit to the U.S. southern border in El Paso, Texas. While there, however, he saw little of the human cost of the catastrophe, as he didn’t meet or see any of the illegal immigrants who have streamed across the border since he assumed office.
But in the days before he arrived for what was little more than a photo op, Biden rekindled a controversy that has been simmering for most of the last decade. The president declared asylum in the United States a “human right”—underlined by the plight of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.
In so doing, he placed those who believe the collapse of security at the border is a national disgrace and a threat to the security and well-being of the nation in the unfair position of being characterized as heartless, at best. At worst, it makes them reminiscent of antisemites who refused entry to those Jews seeking to escape death during the Holocaust.
The pernicious comparison has been a recurring theme among some on the left. It was amply illustrated by the recent PBS Ken Burns documentary series, “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” which falsely linked present-day opponents of illegal immigration, such as former President Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to those who closed America’s doors to Hitler’s victims or opposed efforts to rescue Jews.
cont’d…