‘The comic thing about this drama is that no one is even pretending there is a real emergency.” So says Neeraj Kaushal, 57, a professor of social policy at Columbia who has just published a bracing book on U.S. immigration policy. Her thesis: Far from presenting an emergency, as President Trump contends, America’s immigration system is the best in the world.
“Many European countries just import workers,” Ms. Kaushal tells me in an interview at her office. “They balk at making a long-term commitment to people. America, by contrast, offers immigrants a variety of legal ways in which to come to the country and live permanently.” The legacy of immigration has given rise to “a different ethos in America. The country wants people to come here and be part of the American story. Immigration leads to citizenship.”