Give me your tired, your poor.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Syrian refugees - Editorial

Hostility toward immigrants and refugees is on the rise worldwide--especially in our country, thanks to the inflammatory rhetoric of Donald Trump.

Trump's slanderous comments about criminals and rapists pouring over our southern border are particularly cruel, reporter Jack Craver points out in this issue, since so many Latin American asylum seekers are themselves victims of violent crime.

"The majority are women. Almost all have been beaten, many have been raped, and many have seen friends and family murdered," Craver writes of the people he interviewed who have been in refugee detention centers in Texas. "They come to the United States out of desperation, hoping the Land of Opportunity will let them live, work, and raise a family in peace."

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Instead, the Obama Administration has been detaining and deporting thousands of Central American women and children.

The Texas detention centers Craver writes about are like prisons. Refugees there are pressured with interrogation tactics designed to get them to relinquish their right to legal asylum.

Meanwhile, private contractors profit from U.S. detention policy. A provision slipped into a 2010 appropriations bill requires the government to keep detention centers full so contractors can make a profit.

As Joel Gonzalez, a former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement prosecutor, told Craver: "The idea that somewhere in our laws are embedded these guarantees to for-profits is crazy."

It's also a perversion of our nation's ideals.

Syrians fleeing war and terrorism in their home country also confront a tragic irony when the countries to which they flee treat them as potential terrorists.

Toledo, Ohio, has resettled a significant portion of the Syrian refugees who have come to the United States. But of the 20,000 Syrians in the pipeline for U.S. resettlement, most won't make it through, Arun Gupta reports.

That's because of an incredibly burdensome screening process. "Many people are turned away because they can't provide documents," says...