The Problem With Only Letting In the 'Good' Immigrants

It’s difficult to determine who is “good” without making some troubling assumptions. American culture contains several competing, powerful psychological narratives about how immigration works—or at least how it should work. There is America as a glorious “melting pot” of cultures and America as a benevolent shelter for the tired, poor masses. There is also a view of a country threatened by new arrivals, typically non-white aliens with inferior cultures—“stupid” and “swarthy” newcomers, as Ben Franklin once wrote of Germans. Though the rhetoric has evolved over the centuries, debates over immigration...