"Trump makes an all time low" An interpretation of The New York Times article by Adelaide Willert

"Trump to Cap Refugees Allowed Into U.S. at 30,000, a Record Low"

The New York Times article, written by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, discusses President Donald Trump's decision to cap the yearly number of refugee immigrants allowed into the United States at 30,000, the record low for our country. The announcement was made on Monday by Trump administration, and was a shock as the altered figure was cut by a third from the initial refugee immigrant acceptance number, 45,000. The article covers the speculation that Stephen Miller, senior policy adviser for the president, had the intention of restricting the amount of refugees allowed into the country. Given that his far-right political view, this would be no surprise, as implied by Davis in her article.

Given the values the United States was founded on, this restriction is constraining and in my opinion, unacceptable. We should not be decreasing that amount of people we allow into our country, but rather, we should be increasing it; especially as our program supports people in danger. The first American colonies were founded by people fleeing from religious, racial, and economic persecution, the same things that people are fleeing from today. The fact that we are not accepting people analogous to our founders contradicts our values. While I understand there needs to be a limit so that we do not exceed our capacity (economically, geographically, residentially, etc.), by reducing our refugee intake by a third, our country is making an international disconnect, alienating itself. What we need to ask ourselves is what if we were in their shoes and them in ours?