Why Was Anne Frank Denied Entry into America?

     Imagine that Anne Frank had been allowed to immigrate to America. She’d be eighty-nine now, perhaps penning a memoir of her escaping from Nazis, settling in Boston, and fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer.     
     Her father tried desperately to relocate his family into the United States, but the gates into our country snapped shut.    Trapped in Amsterdam, the Frank family hid for two years in rooms concealed behind a bookcase. When discovered, they were shipped to concentration camps where Anne died of typhus at the age of fifteen.     
     “I don't want to have lived in vain…,” Anne wrote in her diary while in hiding. “I want to go on living even after my death!” Her dream came true after the war when her notes were discovered and published as “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Anne’s wrestlings on paper about life and death have been translated into more than sixty languages and turned into a play and movie.     Why was her family denied entrance into America? The public feared that foreign Jews might be criminals and argued we must look after our own first.     
​     Anne’s story makes me shiver as we wrestle today with complex immigration solutions. I wonder how many in danger from gang violence or poverty are denied safety because of unfounded fears and an America-first policy. While we bask in prosperity, have we forgotten the value of every soul?

Dr. Seuss, a political cartoonist during World War II, captured the sentiment of the country then - and perhaps now.