I won't pretend to have expertise on Afghanistan, but I have researched migrant and #refugee integration for a few years. A 🧵:
Refugees are an economic boon to their host communities, both because of the economic dynamism of refugees themselves (pnas.org/content/113/27…) and indirectly because of the positive spillovers of cash transfers to refugees (tinyurl.com/5b6da3t9).
In fact, in many cases and against all odds, refugees revitalize struggling small towns, e.g. the case of Somali Bantu refugees in Lewiston, Maine: library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.…
Contrary to what the far right will have you believe, refugees are not a security risk. There is zero link between refugees and conflict (tinyurl.com/4b3m6vur), nor are refugees a "radicalizable" group (tinyurl.com/smpfb3ff).
And yet... Americans have never favored taking in refugees. 
In the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis and on the eve of Trump's election, Americans preferred certain types of refugees only: Christian, English-speaking, female. journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
The US hosts a trivial number of refugees. Indeed, developing countries host 85% of the world's more than 25 million refugees (journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…). In 2019, the US resettled 30k refugees. In 2020, just 11,800 refugees were resettled in the US.
What will it take to change public opinion? The evidence suggests that providing basic information and facts doesn't seem to move Americans very much on this topic: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.10…
More encouragingly, sharing narratives that encourage perspective-taking might be more effective at increasing inclusive attitudes toward migrants (osf.io/z2awt/ and tinyurl.com/yfm5vvd6) and at moving people to act on behalf of refugees (pnas.org/content/115/38…).
At the same time, new research shows that attitudes toward migration are remarkably stable over time (journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/71…); so perhaps what we most need now is leadership with vision and a commitment to do the right thing: tinyurl.com/wxzvw3eh.
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