Immigrants Built This Country

They came from everywhere. Somalia. China. Italy. Mexico. The Dominican Republic. Liberia. Puerto Rico. Russia. Ireland. Japan. Poland. Guatemala. Iran. Brazil. Kenya. Jamaica. India. Ukraine. Slovenia. Israel. Vietnam. Egypt. Germany. Argentina. Haiti. Greece. Syria. Congo. Sudan. Lithuania. Panama. Et cetera. Immigrants came to America and found a better life and built families and got jobs and voted and contributed and brought a little of their culture to us (and now Neil Diamond is going through your head: “They’re coming to America … TODAY!”).

Forgive my dramatic intro and forgive my appearance on the soapbox. But whenever I hear anything about restricting immigration, I think of my paternal grandparents, who came from Ireland. They became citizens and they got jobs and they started a family and they voted and they contributed to America. They did have some advantage over some other groups. Grandmom and Grandpop weren’t fleeing anything like the Syrians. They were white Christians and English was their first language.

But I can’t forget that at one time in history, the Irish were very unwelcome in America. It seems like every group of immigrants had a turn as persona non grata in the United States. I can’t forget that at one time, people were treating people like my grandparents as the enemy, many of whom were fleeing famine and persecution.

I just think of that today when I read about travelers, including kids, detained at airports because of the Muslim ban. Yes, this is a Muslim ban. President Trump is giving priority to Christians from Muslim-majority countries but I guess if you’re a Syrian kid fleeing from the terrorists who have killed an inordinate number of Muslims, sorry, but you’re out of luck, kid. The travel ban does not affect countries in which Trump does business, despite the fact that these countries have actually produced terrorists in the past (compared to zero attacks in the U.S. by Syrians). So if your nation’s golf courses put money in the president’s pocket, we’ll roll out the red carpet. This is what executive branch corruption looks like.

I want ISIS defeated too but I don’t think this is the way to do it. We already heavily vet refugees from Syria so I really don’t think there was the unending flow of people coming in. People who are much smarter than me have said repeatedly that this will only inflame tensions and radicalize people to become terrorists and people have also made arguments that becoming an isolationist country poses many dangers to us. This is not even to mention the economic damage that this could do to America. If I can grasp these arguments, why can’t the White House?

People much smarter than me can make these arguments so I won’t belabor them. I just can’t help thinking that if somebody restricted my grandparents from immigrating, I wouldn’t be here today on my digital soapbox.