'This migrant crisis is not unlike problems we've faced before'

People are seen around the "tent city" for migrants at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center on August 16, 2023 in the Queens borough of New York City. The "tent city" meant for migrants opened on Tuesday and is expected to host about 1,000 migrants as state officials struggle to handle the influx of asylum seekers

(Image credit: Leonardo Munoz / VIEW press via Getty Images)

By Harold Maass, The Week US

published 30 November 2023

'We need to reestablish and enforce credible limits on immigration'

Jeremy Beck in the New York Post

People "of all political stripes" want to curb an "unprecedented flood" of migrants overwhelming cities like New York, says Jeremy Beck in the New York Post. Something similar happened in the decades after the Civil War, when millions "flocked to America" from Southern and Eastern Europe. "The situation benefited slumlords and sweatshop owners but few others." Then as now, the solution is for Congress to "humanely, but credibly, scale immigration back to a more sustainable level."

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.