(edited transcript)
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Then & Now. I’m Julian Zelizer of The Long View.
JONATHAN ALTER:
And I’m Jonathan Alter of Old Goats.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Jon is a traveling man. I’m always in the same place.
I was thinking this week was a big week on policies related to refugees. There were a bunch of Supreme Court rulings in the last few days that expanded President Trump’s power to make decisions, particularly about Haitians, for example, and Syrians who are in the country. This is obviously part of a broader moment where the administration has tried to really clamp down on refugees coming in and on protections for those already here.
I was thinking about President Carter. You and I have both spent time with him. During the Cold War, he was also dealing with refugee policy and, in 1980, signed legislation that set the parameters for many of the policies we still have today. I’m curious what your thoughts are about Carter in that period as a contrast to where we are today on this issue of refugees.
JONATHAN ALTER:
First of all, let’s put this in the context of seeking asylum, where the country you’re coming from is dangerous. For a lot of refugees, that’s the reason they come.
Just so we understand where we are right now, the only people Trump has admitted as refugees are about 900 white South Africans. Think about all of the murderous regimes around the world. Trump is completely unsympathetic to refugees fleeing those regimes.
Jimmy Carter also faced a country that was ambivalent about immigration. This was at the end of the Vietnam War, and there was a lot of debate about what to do with Vietnamese refugees. Carter finally decided to admit hundreds of thousands of the “boat people,” as they were called, fleeing communism in Vietnam. They turned out to be model citizens and a very important part of the country we have today.
But it doesn’t always work out quite as well, at least in the short term. The other refugee policy Carter was known for involved Cubans. He admitted many of those who came during the Mariel boatlift, including some with criminal records whom Castro had essentially expelled.
When detainees rioted at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, in 1980 while they were being held before processing, it created a huge political problem for Carter. Bill Clinton later said it cost him his reelection as governor that year.
So the politics of this can often be difficult.
The larger problem is that the Refugee Act of 1980, which Carter signed and which regularized all of this, has been abused in recent decades. A lot of people have come here claiming asylum, but they’re really here for economic reasons. The law is dysfunctional, and that’s one reason so many people think we need comprehensive immigration reform.
We were headed toward that on a bipartisan basis in 2024. Donald Trump told the Republicans: don’t vote for it. I want to use it as a campaign issue, which he then did.
JULIAN ZELIZER:
Thank you. That was really interesting. We’re two of the biggest Carter scholars and students around, so it’s always great to have these conversations with you.
Have a great wedding. Congratulations to the couple, and thanks for walking us through that history.
Thanks, Jon. We’ll talk again next week.
JONATHAN ALTER:
Thanks, Julian.
