Inside Open Society
January 12, 2026
By Gregory Maniatis
I am the son of two Greek immigrants who came to the United States to study and ended up staying when a military dictatorship seized power in their homeland. They were able to remain here thanks to a compassionate senator and a country that was open and welcoming to newcomers. I grew up as a beneficiary of that generosity. So when I see what is happening across America today—masked agents smashing car windows and racially profiling people on our streets, families separated without due process, and entire communities living in fear—I feel it not as an abstraction but as an assault on the very idea that shaped my life.This past year, the administration has transformed immigration enforcement into something unrecognizable. Hundreds of thousands have been deported or pressured to leave. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents now operate in places that were once considered off-limits—courthouses, hospitals, churches, and schools. A new law has poured $170 billion into detention and deportation infrastructure. In cities across the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago, people are afraid to go to work, to take their children to school, to seek medical care, or to report a crime. The cruelty is not incidental; it is the point—to drive immigrants out of our country.
