Reagan Welcomed Hundreds of Thousands of Boat People. And Today the GOP Is Demonizing Refugees?

In 1989, President Ronald Reagan’s farewell address referenced a refugee crisis which lasted throughout his presidency and beyond: the “boat people” of Indochina. In the wake of America’s involvement in Vietnam, perhaps as many as 2-million Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians began to flee repressive regimes beginning in 1975. It took twenty years for that refugee crisis to end.

Reagan faced the cameras and told of “the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea.” Here, “a leaky little boat” was crammed with “refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America.” When refugees met with sailors from the USS Midway, one cried up, “Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.”

Bottom line, the Gipper’s version of America welcomed these “boat people.” According to Reagan, the Pilgrim’s promise, that “beacon on a hill,” would light the way. “And she's still a beacon,” claimed Reagan, “still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness toward home.” Reagan’s farewell address may seem idyllic, perhaps even Hollywood-esque, but his words are nonetheless important. To Reagan, “freedom is special and rare,” and no wonder the refugees of the world, then the “boat people,” wanted to come here.

What a contrast between Ronald Reagan’s response to an ongoing refugee crisis and that of the current GOP. The United States, through operations such as the Orderly Departure Program, took in nearly half-a-million “boat people” refugees. As of last month, the United States has committed to resettle but 10,000 from the Islamic civil wars playing out in Syria and Northern Iraq. In other words, the Great Communicator’s response to refugees fleeing the repressive regimes of Indochina was for the United States to accept nearly a fourth of them. If the United States was to follow in the footsteps of those resettlement programs, this country would promise to absorb approximately 1.3-million Syrians.

But even the paltry number of 10,000 committed to by the Obama administration is considered too high by thirty-one states, thirty of them led by GOP governors who, in November of 2015, have refused to welcome them (whatever that means and however that plays out legally).

- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/161438#sthash.sI9kAX7p.dpuf


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I am all for allowing many refugees in but the process has to be far better on vetting to not allow any forms of extremists in, whether taht be political, religious etc. Or if once in found to hold extremist views to be deported.
I speak of all different religious and political extremes and am not singling out anyone. For example if any Ukrainian Far right extremists came here as refugees I would want them turned away.

yeah and spot the difference...


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