What has happened to America

I have just started Partners: The United Nations and Youth by Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Ferris. The book, published in 1950, has an illustration in its first chapter of the 150 thousandth refugee arriving in the United States after World War II. The San Diege Mercury News wrote last month:

The United States in recent years has admitted less than one-third of the number of refugees who arrived each year during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In the 2007 fiscal year, State Department data shows the United States admitted 48,281 refugees, well below the 70,000-person yearly legal limit. Last year, 1,608 Iraqis were among those refugees admitted to the United States, only 3 percent of total refugee admissions, a Mercury News analysis of State Department data shows.

The Bush administration promises improvement in 2008, but critics say it is betraying the trust of the Iraqi people, including translators and other Iraqis who risked their lives to help U.S. forces in Iraq.

The United States resettled about 34,000 Iraqi refugees after the first Gulf War. This was in my opinion a very small number, given the way the U.S. Government encouraged insurrection in Iraq, especially in Shiite areas, and then left the insurgents to face the Iraqi army without our support. But that was far better than what the Government is doing in this war. There are millions of displaced people, and Syria and Jordan, countries much smaller and poorer than our own which are each struggling to absorb a million displaced Iraqis. Why can't the United States do better?

I was especially struck by Eleanor Roosevelt, at that point the widow of the president, leading the effort to build public support for human rights, generosity towards the people displaced by the war. The book of course recognizes the UN Relief Organization, and the roles of UNICEF and UNESCO in helping the children left alone and destitute by the War. Too bad we don't have similar leadership in helping the children left abandoned in the wakes of war and civil unrest, not only in Iraq and Iran, but in dozens of conflicts in Africa and other parts of the world. Non Governmental Organizations are working hard to meet the needs, but the Republican leadership is too busy building irrational fears of immigrants for their political purposes, and the Democrats are not stepping up to defend one of America's proudest traditions!