Immigration policy is local, too

The busing of migrants to New York outraged many, including me . . . at first. Like many of those riding on the buses, I am originally from Venezuela. Having come to America seven years ago in a much less precarious situation, I felt compassion for these new arrivals. When a friend from my church told me that she had met an asylum-seeking family in a hotel, I agreed to visit the shelter and help.

What I saw was the abject failure of national and local immigration policies. … Many of these problems have policy solutions. But rather than be constructive, activists are stirring up the migrants living in shelters and lying to them for political purposes. One video showed someone instigating the Venezuelan migrants around him to protest. “This isn’t a shelter, it’s a detention center,” he said of the three-star Watson Hotel. “The city and the state have enough money to shelter everyone.”

Reality is more sobering.