Rants against Afghan refugees un-American

As political battles rage over our retreat from Afghanistan, one unsurprising but depressing development is that the nativist contingent of the right has turned its attention to warding off the refugee "invasion."

Amid reports of millions of Afghans terrified by the advance of Taliban militants and seeking to flee — particularly those facing retribution because they have worked with American forces — Fox News host Tucker Carlson last week delivered a diatribe warning that the crisis would be used to expand asylum claims: "We will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country in coming months, probably in your neighborhood." He added that the number may eventually "swell to the millions" and concluded, "So, first we invade, and then we’re invaded."

There are many notable things about this repulsive rant, including the fact that while Carlson denounced pro-refugee Republicans such as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) as "architects" of the disastrous war who should be "groveling for our forgiveness," he was himself a vocal hawk in 2001. But it’s the clamor against immigration and asylum that starkly exposes the indecency — and, arguably, un-Americanness — of today’s populist right.

Carlson was far from alone in his xenophobic agitation. "Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of potentially unvetted refugees from Afghanistan?" inquired his Fox colleague Laura Ingraham. "Potentially" is doing a lot of work here, since all refugee claims are subject to vetting. On Twitter, former Trump adviser and anti-immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller accused the Biden administration of wanting to "use their catastrophic debacle in Afghanistan as a pretext for doing to America what Angela Merkel did to Germany" by taking in large numbers of Syrian refugees.

Fortunately, this fearmongering is not reflected in public opinion. A CBS News/YouGov poll shows that an overwhelming 81% of Americans support resettling Afghans who were our allies and helpers. That includes 76% of Republicans. And yet the nativist "base" has a disproportionate political influence in the party. Notably, while Donald Trump’s early statement on the withdrawal referred to Afghans "who have been good to our Country and who should be allowed to seek refuge," he backtracked to emphasize "America First" in a later interview.

Yes, a massive influx of refugees from war-torn countries who lack essential job and life skills to adjust to their new home is likely to have a destabilizing effect. To some extent, this was the case in Germany in 2015-16, when refugee resettlement problems boosted the populist far right.

But no one right now is talking about bringing tens of millions of Afghans to the United States. There are fewer than 90,000 pending asylum claims from Afghanistan. (An adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence has said that Trump and Miller actively sabotaged the processing of those claims.) If things go as badly as is feared, that number will undoubtedly grow. But the people seeking to come here will be primarily those Afghans most likely to thrive in America: the most educated, modernized, and interested in freedom.

In a 1983 speech, Ronald Reagan said that one thing that makes America exceptional is that anyone from any corner of the world can come here and become an American. In 2021, you’d think that smart conservatives would point to the "brown" refugees who see America as their hope for a better life to refute leftist claims that America is a white supremacist society. Too many, it seems, would rather stoke nativism.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a contributing editor at Reason magazine, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.