Opinion: Trump’s refugee ban betrays shared history of struggle, including mine

The refugee admissions program, a hallmark of American global leadership for over 40 years, was suspended the day President Trump took office. The reasons, according to his executive order, are to safeguard “taxpayer resources” and to ensure “appropriate assimilation.”

This move is misguided and damaging. I know this because I’m a refugee.

My family immigrated to the U.S. to escape the tanking economy and religious persecution in the Soviet Union after it collapsed in the early 1990s.