What do you even mean to say by that? That because things have been shitty there for a long time, people shouldn't try to leave now? Do you have any idea what it's like to live under a theocratic dictatorship? Where saying the wrong thing can get you or your family tortured and executed?

Did I say that?

For one thing he appears to speak English pretty well, if you were fleeing an oppressive regime and you had to choose where to go, would you not choose somewhere where you spoke the language?

What the theocratic regime does to the people you mean? A country's population is not a monolith, and a sizeable majority especially of young people hate and want to get rid of the regime.