Kcomt left her life as a judge in Peru when she was in danger. She has worked for the United Nations and is a Refugee Congress honorary delegate. She lives in San Diego.
Whichever side of the spectrum you're on, the topic of immigration has never been more political than it is today. I know because I had to speak in public about the migration crisis recently, and it was a real challenge to decide whether to speak about the disappointment and heartbreak in my heart or whether I should try to be more impartial to avoid offending people.
I work at a nonprofit by the name of Refugee Congress in San Diego, 20 minutes from the U.S. southern border. We help immigrants and refugees get access to services. Unfortunately, since recent changes in asylum law took effect, fewer people have been coming to my office seeking assistance. That's not to say that there aren't people coming to the U.S. seeking safety. They are. It more likely means people have lost trust in the system to take care of them and they are now seeking help underground. I worry that this creates more opportunities for exploitation by traffickers as seen by what happened to 41 migrants who are still missing after a recent kidnapping in Mexico. People are in real danger when they undertake these trips, and would not risk it if their lives were not at stake.
The challenge right now is that political strategy seems to be getting in the way of actually helping people. We need to do more to educate each other about why people would flee their homelands to come to the United States. And we need to remember that seeking asylum happens because people are in danger. Yet instead, we have reached the point where everybody seems to be thinking about the next election while people suffer in the ensuing confusion.
Congress has failed for more than a decade to pass meaningful immigration reform, and the resulting hash of band-aid "solutions" leaves many in shaky and unsafe circumstances. It increases the sense of worry and concern for vulnerable migrants as well as the danger they face in coming to America.
Last month, the Biden administration replaced a temporary order called Title 42 that was put in place by the Trump administration. Title 42 was a discriminatory and unnecessary policy that was put in place under the guise of a “temporary public health” measure to prevent the coronavirus from entering the U.S. But, was in actuality a de facto way of turning people away. People seeking safety were turned away without consideration of their claims.
According to U.S. and international law, individuals arriving in the U.S. can request asylum at our border. These individuals undergo a screening process to evaluate if they have a legitimate fear of persecution in their home country. Following this, their cases are directed to the immigration court system to decide if they can remain in the U.S., a process that may take years. Typically, they are allowed to stay in the U.S. while their cases are pending.
Now we have a new policy that has resulted in the U.S. deporting 11,000 migrants in the week after Title 42 ended. The Biden administration had recently begun denying asylum to those who did not initially seek protection in a country they passed through or if they did not apply online first. The Biden administration has also started to offer a phone app to help migrants by allowing them to secure appointments to enter the U.S. at border ports of entry. The goal is for them to be able to seek asylum in a more orderly fashion. However, in my experience, most migrants don't have smartphones. For unaccompanied minors seeking asylum, it is even more difficult to follow the new rules. Because of stronger consequences for illegal entry, border crossings have also plummeted. But the administration should not be proud of this. It just means that they turned away people who should have been able to legally seek safety and instead left them in harm’s way.
I don't doubt the good intentions of those behind the new policies given how difficult it is to do anything definitive when it comes to our immigration policy. I myself came here from Peru when my life was in danger and I filed for asylum. I know how important asylum is and I would like for our nation to be bolder in asserting ourselves as a beacon of fairness and humanity for people.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.