We could also tear down the Statue of Liberty. Remove the “Mother of the Exiles”, in The words of Emma Lazarus 140 years ago. Blow out your torch by welcoming other nations “your tired masses, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breathe free.”
And forget the praise we've long heard, from social studies teachers and presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, about the United States being “a land of immigrants” he “shining city on a hill” he “promised land” to millions of immigrants throughout its history.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
It is true that the United States has never lived up to its self-proclaimed ideal as a beacon to the world; the nation has always had a troubled relationship with waves of would-be Americans. As a schoolgirl of Irish and German descent, I learned about the “No Irish need apply” signs in the United States around the time my 19th-century ancestors arrived, and about the law of the early 20th century in my native Ohio that prohibited speaking German, the language of my grandmother and great-grandparents.
But today's open xenophobia is one of the worst examples. in our history, and a defining attribute of one of our two major political parties, the Republicans. In their presidential primary debate Wednesday night, Republican candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley fought hard to demonstrate their anti-immigration. For months, House Republicans have opposed more aid to Ukraine and Israel — and could now block government funding, too — unless President Biden and Democrats agree to crack down on immigration.
And yet, andeconomically and demographically, amid the retirement of baby boomers and a persistently low birth rate, the nation has rarely, if ever, needed more immigrants. We need them to work, even in jobs that most Americans wouldn't take; pay taxes, including the payroll taxes that prop up our limited Social Security and Medicare programs, and replenish America's entrepreneurial spirit with the risk-taking inclination that immigrants show in leaving their homes to come here.
It is a testament to the opportunities that the United States still promises to keep foreigners coming despite the way they are demonized in our internal debates. Lady Liberty's “Lamp by the Golden Gate” in New York Harbor is giving way to layer upon layer of barbed wire along the Texas border with Mexico.
Yes, the influx at the southern border is as serious and uncontrolled as ever. Those who come in search of a better life from Mexico and Central and South America are joined at the Rio Grande and other entry points by immigrants from Africa, China, Ukraine and the countries where the United States was recently at war, Iraq and Afghanistan, all seeking asylum or attempting to cross illegally. At the same time, the United States must protect itself against terrorists and drug traffickers who also wish in.
It is essential to act boldly. But it shouldn't simply be restrictive and punitive; It must balance the imperative of border control with America's ideals and, less abstractly, its needs. The restrictions must be combined with incentives for the workers, skilled and unskilled, that American employers tell Congress they desperately want to hire; For every unemployed person in the United States, there are 1.6 vacant positions. New laws must address the millions of people now here illegally, including providing them with a path to citizenship. And Washington needs to invest many more resources to meet the demand of processing the record number of immigrants and asylum seekers clamoring to be admitted.
All of this, however, requires a bipartisanship that is not in sight. Congress has not come close to enacting sweeping immigration reform for a decade, when the Senate passed a measure by a bipartisan 2-to-1 margin only for the Republican-controlled House to refuse. consider it. If that bill had become law, it would have already reduced the federal budget deficit by $197 billion and added $276 billion to Social Security, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
Polarization around immigration is relatively new. In centuries past, sentiment for and against immigration existed largely without distinction of party. Now, however, the Republican Party has gone from being largely pro-immigration (it was Reagan who signed the last comprehensive law, which included an amnesty for millions, in 1986) to being unabashedly nativist. Aside from his hostility toward undocumented immigrants, three quarters of Republicans promote a decrease in legal newcomers. (The good news: The same Gallup poll from July showed that a majority of Americans say immigration is good for the country.)
The Republican Party was already turning against immigration when Donald Trump opened his 2016 presidential campaign by calling those arriving from Mexico murderers and rapists. Then, as now, he played to the base. Eight years later, as a probable Republican candidate for 2024, the former president echoes Nazi-era rhetoric by stating that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
So much for the crucible.
Trump's promisesif re-elected, organize an unprecedented deportation of millions of undocumented residents, many of whom have been here for years and are raising children who are American citizens, and build sprawling detention camps for those newly captured at the borders.
To see how enormously changed the Republican Party is in this regard, here is Reagan in his farewell speech: “Thanks to each wave of newcomers to this land of opportunity, we are an ever-young nation, always full of energy and new ideas. …If we ever closed the door to newcomers, we would soon lose our leadership in the world.”
and here it is Trump earlier this week: “They come from prisons all over the world. … Some of these people make our prisoners seem like very nice people.”
Never mind that Trump's first and third wives, mothers of four of his five children, were immigrants. He is leading the party willing to try to destroy what has been an American superpower.
There is hope in the fact that, as almost every business owner can attest, the nation desperately needs immigrants. In time, perhaps Republicans will give in, if only out of self-interest.
