What should we do about immigration policy? It’s a question many are asking, and some useful perspective comes from an article in Foreign Affairs by British-born, California-based historian Gregory Clark, unhelpfully titled, “The American Dream Is an Illusion.”

The dream to which Clark refers is the idea, promoted by Emma Lazarus’s poem at the Statue of Liberty, that this is “a country of opportunity for all, a country that invites in the world’s tired, its poor and its huddled masses.”