In conversations about the refugee crisis, educated people continue to make the barbaric argument that open doors will benefit the host nation. The time for this outdated colonialist argument has run out; migrants don’t derive their value from their benefit to the Western-born, and civilized people don’t ask for résumés from the edge of the grave. Achebe said, in 1988, “I do not see that it is necessary for any people to prove to another that they built cathedrals or pyramids before they can be entitled to peace and safety.
