Michael Ignatieff: The Rude Guest

I am offended by Michael Ignatieff's rude rebuke of the United States for allegedly not helping Europe during its latest crisis.  Mr. Ignatieff himself is an immigrant, an ungracious guest of the United States who has a job among the privileged elite at Harvard University.

The United States has the most generous immigration policy in the world.  My children go to public schools with children who are recent immigrants and refugees that the U.S. has taken in from China, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Latin America and other foreign lands.  There are over 41,000,000 foreign-born immigrants living in the United States today.  A million more are given visas to live in the U.S. permanently every year.   U.S. immigration laws are mostly guidelines and tens of thousands more show up each year without a visa and live here mostly unmolested once they navigate the border, their children receiving free education and health care.  Any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen no matter where their parents came from or how.   Does Europe offer that. Indeed, has Europe or Canada ever offered to help at all with the millions of Latin American immigrants clamoring at the U.S. door?

America is now in its second century of saving the world.   Too many Americans have given their lives in America's ill-fated wars of good intentions:  brothers, sons, schoolmates and friends.  Too often America has been called upon to save the world because Europe couldn't or wouldn't deal with problems it created.   Is it too much ask that Europe take the lead on dealing with a problem on its doorstep so that America can focus on fixing the very grave problems in the U.S. today, and deal with the millions already knocking on America's door...not Europe's.