Doris Meissner and Muzaffar Chishti, MPI, January 2025
“The passing of the nation’s 39th president has sparked quite a few assessments of the Carter presidency, but few value determinations have centered on the wide-ranging legacy that Jimmy Carter left on immigration coverage and the lasting markers to handle humanitarian and enforcement challenges. The Carter presidency illustrates the lengthy historical past of authorities which might be used in the present day, together with humanitarian parole and creation of lawful pathways to confess folks in orderly methods, and the persistent roots of points reminiscent of spontaneous migration from the Caribbean.  Because the nation remembers the values that knowledgeable a lot of Carter’s presidency, maybe a very powerful was his embrace of human rights as a defining precept of public coverage. He established upholding human rights as a brand new and enduring tenet of American international coverage. His actions on refugee and immigration coverage issues, together with establishing the fashionable refugee resettlement system, had been a manifestation of that promise, each in international and home coverage realms. …”
