Why who we allow to immigrate into the country matters:
When I first came to the U.S. to finish school, a professor told us to take an exam at home and simply said, “Don’t use Google or open your books.”
— Dan Burmawi (@DanBurmawy) January 6, 2026
As someone who grew up in the Middle East, I couldn’t believe it. What kind of society trusts people like that?
But over time, I…
A just outcome when you violate that trust.
How about not granting refugee status to persons with family connections to the brutal dictator who was the reason we granted refugee status to people suffering under this dictator in the first place?
In reply to my own post, what I think the US, with all of its universities and State Department and CIA and other branches of government and agencies does badly is understanding who the players are in the factional strife in the countries we seek to help with the best of alturistic intentions.
I remember going to Wrigley Field in Chicago as a young person to watch the Cubs play baseball, and the ticket got you into the park, but a program was something purchased separately. Vendors walked up and down the stands yelling, “Programs! Get your program! How can you tell the players if you don’t get your program?”
I never bought the program and I never figured out who the players were and why it mattered, and I get the sense that we in the U.S. conduct our relations with countries we seek to help the same way.
There is a fundamental difference between refugees and immigrants. Let the host country beware…