Masha Gessen Quotes
Journalists casually use terms like crossing the border illegally when referring to asylum seekers - when in fact there is no law that says they must use the ports of entry.
Gessen, Masha. "The Zero-Tolerance Cruelty of the Trump Administration." The New Yorker, 20 June 2018.
The illegal alien problem had vexed Republican and Democratic Administrations for over 50 years and is one of the most complicated of all the problems facing the nation. She offered the voters a simple solution.
The issue of admission of relatives of citizens had, in the 20th century, become controversial as some political forces worked to restrict immigration. The result of politicizing this issue was that the relatives who would receive immigration priorities would change every time Congress legislated about anything involving immigration and asylum. Immigrants from some countries could have their aunts and uncles get priority while other countries it was only siblings, children and parents. And still others would be children only. There was also racial and ethnic discrimination in that nations with white populations received a broader right to have relatives immigrate than non-white.
Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist who has been an outspoken critic of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and the former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
