You are Not Welcome Here Anymore: Restoring Support for Refugee Resettlement in the Age of Trump

"You are Not Welcome Here Anymore: Restoring Support for Refugee Resettlement in the Age of Trump" analyzes one of the major forces that led to Trump's rise to the presidency: a strong anti-immigrant-and anti-refugee- worldview, shaped in part by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations theory. This theory posits that conflicts around the globe are caused by clashes between cultures-not ideologies or nation states. Huntington believed that there are five major "cultural fault lines":  Western Christian, Russian Orthodox, Confucian (China), Islamic, and Latin American.  This belief system, shared and promoted by Steve Bannon and many of the President's advisors, fueled the hostility expressed during the campaign towards Muslim and Latin American immigrants and refugees.  Trump and his coterie of supporters worried that multiculturalism, would lead to the downfall of western, Christian civilization.  Huntington believed that the end of the Cold War would mark the end of ideological conflicts and the beginning of cultural conflicts, thus setting the stage for the upsurge of xenophobia in the U.S. In the remainder of the essay, the author discusses what can be done to firm up public support for refugee resettlement, especially in the face of this cultural worldview. He emphasizes "the centrality of culture in the legislative process," and calls for a rethinking of strategies for creating a more welcoming America. Traditional advocacy will probably yield limited results. Rather, reaching out to grassroots America with a different narrative about the U.S. place in the world will be crucial. (Deb D'Anastasio for The ILC Public Education Institute)

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