According to this article, America has a long history of shunning refugees. Do you believe this to be true? What are your thoughts?

"It wasn’t always that way. Since 1975, America has accepted 1.69 million refugees under Republican presidents, and 1.56 million under Democratic ones, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants."

An interesting read. What are your thoughts about the article below?

SAN FRANCISCO (Tribune News Service) — Unlike more than half of the nation’s governors, California Gov. Jerry Brown is welcoming Syrian refugees to his state. But Brown sounded a lot different 40 years ago, when thousands of refugees from the Vietnam War were headed to California during his first term in office.

Then, Brown tried to prevent planes carrying refugees from landing at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield. His team told Julia Taft, the federal official trying to resettle the refugees, that California had “had too many Hispanics, too many people on welfare,” Taft recalled years later.

“We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here,” Brown said in 1975.

His words sounded like those of many Americans when confronted with a wave of refugees. And they mirror those of today’s politicians pushing to keep Syrian refugees out of the U.S. in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks. While early reports said a Syrian passport was found near the body of one of the attackers, now top European Union officials say all of the terrorists were European Union citizens.

But that bit of evidence hasn’t stopped the knee-jerk xenophobia. America fancies itself as a nation of immigrants, but when it comes to refugees, we are a nation of NIMBYs (an acronym for the phrase "Not In My Back Yard").

Just two months ago, in September, the nation was riveted by the image of Aylan Kurdi, a 3-year-old who drowned off the Greek coast during his struggle to escape his dangerous Syrian homeland. This week, some of the leading Republican presidential candidates said they only want to consider accepting Christian Syrian refugees.

Forget what is written on the Statue of Liberty. Polls from the last century have shown the American public is traditionally hostile toward allowing refugees into the land of immigrants.

Not during the Holocaust — 67 percent of Americans opposed a government plan to accept 10,000 European orphans into the U.S. in 1939.

Not after it — a 1946 Gallup Poll found 59 percent of Americans disapproved of a plan to accept Jews and others displaced after the war.

Not when Eastern Europeans fled Communism in the 1950s — when a plurality opposed President Dwight Eisenhower’s plan to accept 240,000 people fleeing communist takeovers of their countries.

Not for the Haitians and Iraqis more recently.

The only difference now is that that those feelings are largely divided along partisan lines; nearly all of the governors who want to keep Syrian refugees out are Republicans, as are most of those in Congress.

It wasn’t always that way. Since 1975, America has accepted 1.69 million refugees under Republican presidents, and 1.56 million under Democratic ones, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

“It’s always been a bipartisan issue — now suddenly it’s a partisan issue,” said Lavinia Limon, president and CEO of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, who has been working on refugee issues since 1975.

“This is the typical scenario. The new group comes in. Nobody likes them. They’re vilified. Then over time, we move onto the next group to vilify,” said Limon, who first began working with refugees in California’s Camp Pendleton during the wave of Vietnamese immigrants.

On Tuesday, leading House Republicans proposed that President Obama’s plan to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees be “paused.” Refugees could be admitted only if the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the director of National Intelligence unanimously “certify to Congress that each refugee is not a security threat.”

It’s an upgrade from Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz only wanting to accept Christian Syrians. Or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another distant White House hopeful, promising to bar even 3-year-old Syrian refugees from American shores.

It’s easy to see why politicians pander.

Back in 1975, 62 percent of the respondents to a Harris Survey said they were afraid that Vietnamese immigrants would take their jobs. Then, a first-term Gov. Brown agreed with them. Today, a fourth-term Gov. Brown is welcoming Syrian refugees.

“Maybe Jerry Brown got wiser with age,” Limon said. “But he’s seen that’s what happens all the time with newcomers. Given half an opportunity, they assimilate.”

It’s a process Limon has watched among wave after wave of migrants.

“By the second or third generation, nobody speaks the language of their grandfather,” she said. “All they have to remember them by is their goulash recipe.”

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