America (Washington Insider Magazine) -The sheer inhumanity of the Donald Trump administration should not be forgotten, and the examples to this end, whether aimed at immigrants or American citizens, were numerous across his four years in office. He cut the refugee cap to its lowest modern number, slashed legal immigration, and turned ICE loose upon so many communities that many families will simply never be the same; he helped to create, for not the first time, an environment where nativism was able to thrive and gain traction amongst the media and the population of a nation made entirely of immigrants from one time or another.
Yet we are no longer in the era of the 45th President but of the 46th President. While there are definitely lingering issues and problems across various sectors of American life as the nation continues to deal with COVID-19 in the form of consistently evolving, new strains of the virus, and while some of those issues, in their exacerbated states, can be traced directly to the last President, most predate him, such as income inequality. Immigration, like the aforementioned economic inequality, happens to be one of those issues of which Donald Trump made worse, but is not wholly responsible for; Iran is another example along these lines.
Returning to the topic at hand, however, the 45th President was no friend or savior to any of the people anywhere around the world who sought to escape hardship and persecution for the promise and chance at a true and honest opportunity at a better existence. Sadly, in a speech in Guatemala some months ago, however, the 49th Vice President of the United States helped to further underscore that the 46th President of the United States does not intend to embrace the throngs of fleeing, poor, or terrorized masses too much more than his recent predecessors have.
When Vice President Kamala Harris expresses her support for legal immigration, or for finding solutions for Guatelmalens at home while telling the nation and its people that, in no uncertain terms, “Do not come. Do not come”, to the United States, she demonstrates a willingness to purposefully misrepresent the historical, as well as practical, reasons behind the largest immigration movements over the past 600 years; this is unacceptable, and frankly inhumane as well. The recently released pictures of Border Patrol on horses with whips, terrorizing Haitian immigrants and asylum seekers, further illustrate this tactless, racist brutality towards people from other, often poorer nations, that transcends Presidential terms and political parties altogether.
The Vice President, in her aforementioned speech, shows no empathy regarding even the legal immigration policy that exists in America today, of which creates a much more difficult road to becoming an American citizen than ever before. She placates the conservatives and reactionaries while failing to highlight that these migrations are, across history in fact, literally and generally matters of life and death for the people that are undertaking them; telling these people, or any other people for that matter, to stay in toxic, poverty-stricken, and life-threatening danger, is practically sentencing them to death, while giving them not even the opportunity for the type of life of which we all deserve a chance at.
People do not usually leave their previous home en masse for anything less than serious or dire reasons
That we as a nation continue to have this discussion regarding immigration is of course, deeply ironic, as well as disturbing; America itself is the quintessential example of a nation built upon immigration. In a time before explicit movement restrictions, immigration quotas, and managed, constantly monitored borders, all of the new world became where those who were persecuted went, in search of a better, oftentimes more tolerant, new life and world. It existed, in the eyes of many of the wealthier Europeans at least, as a release valve for the wanton aggression and pressure of that continent, be it militarily, economically, religiously or otherwise; that they did not think of those people native to the new world or Africa as equally as deserving of this freedom and tolerance is, of course, also ironic, as well as utterly horrifying.
Whether those fleeing or being moved were Puritans, Presbyterians, Quakers, Calvinists, Methodists, Lutherans, or even Catholics, the United States has always welcomed, in certain places at least, the great human bounty of the world. Jewish and Muslim immigrants also came to the new world, and have been here since the Europeans began exploring and settling the continents for themselves, despite that they are not often discussed during the education of this early American history. The history of Europe itself and its great mass of different human tribes can be a wonderful guide in noticing which events would push which people to go where around the world.
While anti-catholic and presbyterian laws in England, Scotland, and eventually Ireland would push those people, starting particularly under the reign of Henry VIII, at the very least to create their own, semi-tolerant homes in the new world, they were not alone. In France, far away from the old, anti-protestant laws which would eventually, under the reign of Louis XIV, would force the French protestants, the Huguenots, both to the disunified protestant German states, as well as to America. Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Russian, and so many other groups would make their way to the American colonies as well over time, fleeing religious and civil turmoil in their native countries; this can be said, should one care to look at most of the existing and disintegrated European states and countries from approximately 1500 AD onward.
To further illustrate this point, as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was being partitioned by Russia, Austria, and pre-Napoleonic-Wars-Prussia, many Poles would flee to fight in other wars of freedom and revolution, famously from the American Revolutionary War to the aforementioned Napoleonic Wars; many Frenchmen too, would flee during the French Revolution, yet Napoleonic Europe actually saw repressed movement to the new world, in part because of the border and population control under the continental system of that era. Subsequent conflicts however, leading up to, including, and beyond the great Revolutions of 1848, would see increases in European migration once again.
While Ireland would suffer complete English control and persecution from the time of Henry VIII onward, the great, English accentuated famine of the mid-19th century in Ireland, exacerbated to the extreme by the apathy, depravity, and economic exploitation of the United Kingdom, also forced great numbers of withered and sickly Irish to take to boats headed to the United States too; many would not live to even see the new country, sadly.
The great secret of this early American history regarding immigration, is simply that the nation had much looser immigration laws or restrictions up until 1924 to be specific. There was previously no quota, despite that there have always been, since 1790 at least, immigration laws designating the various and changing, “qualifications” for becoming a citizen of America; after all, there have always been those who wish to stop the flow of further soon-to-be-Americans, simply because of where they come from or what they look like. Truly it is like the club that, once one finally gains access to, one attempts to limit the future growth of. The first real efforts to limit immigration in a way more familiar to us today, began towards the end of the 19th century, as what is known as the third wave of American immigration was beginning to pick up and inundate the nation with different types of people from across the Earth.
This 30 to 35 year period, loosely speaking, would see the migration of some of the least understood groups of people to have come into America up to that point. Eastern Europeans, including more Russian, Jewish, and Muslim people than had previously been noticed in the country, as well as more people from the Mediterranean states and regions, like the newly created/united Italian people, finally made their various and unique journeys to the United States. These people were not simply out for adventure as the inter-American migrants had long migrated from state to state to territory in search of; no, they were, and in fact still are, escaping the harsh realities of life under constant violence, monarchies, despotisms, and revolutions. Does it not all sound familiar at all?
All of America, save the indigenous peoples of this land and those formerly enslaved black folks, came to America to escape the persecutions of life elsewhere. To this day, one might walk down the street in an American city and meet the heir of a Cuban who lived through the hardships of either pre or post-revolutionary Cuba; perhaps even a man whose family owned rubber plantations in Cambodia before the bombings and internal conflicts, who still remembers his family’s business and how it disintegrated, along with that society that had previously existed, some 50 years ago. You might meet a Palestinian man or woman, with great harrowing tales of their family’s persecution over six decades as well, with deep sorrow in their eyes, combined with the most intense passion and love for both America and Palestine that one might ever be able to imagine; this is the legacy of America, from the 16th and 17th century to the 21st, and it must be finally embraced to its fullest humanitarian potential.
The Legacy of America Embraced to its Fullest Humanitarian Potential
The history of the United States in Central and South America, as well as in the Caribbean Islands, are not a set of histories noted for America’s willingness to allow for national self-determination. The United States attempted for literal decades, across its 250-year-plus history as a nation, to acquire the likes of Cuba and Santa Domingo, now known as the Dominican Republic, to name but two; while all of Mexico was once also, somehow, a realistic war goal for a faction of the country at a later point during the lone term of James K Polk. Had it not been for the reasonable and sane mind of the American diplomat Nicholas Trist, all of Mexico, as the President at the time had become desirous for himself, might now be American states instead of a free nation and peoples. Similarly less-publicized work of American imperial machinations regarding these nations from 1900 to 1940 must be discussed when the topic of immigration is brought up as well of course; to underscore this further, there is seemingly a secret CIA operation for nearly every country in the Caribbean, Central and South American regions at some point since its inception after the second world war.
It is many of these doings, which includes supporting juntas and autocrats against the free will of the people of those nations in return for economic advantages within the regions, that have ultimately created the internal conditions which continue to force man, woman, and child alike out and off of the lands of their ancestors in the first instance, on a dangerous, life-threatening trek that will span thousands of miles. It is a dangerous journey to the United States as many reports have demonstrated, across numerous nations, wherein the locals or the national government are not always so welcoming or friendly themselves, despite the plight of these people; they make it, however, because it is safer to risk death on the way to America than to stay where they previously have called home.
Yet those nations’ and peoples sometimes callous natures must not be excuses for our own national disinterest or apathy towards the plight of these people; we as a nation have our share of the blame after all, and we as a nation have historically accepted those downtrodden of the world with open arms and open hearts. This must not come to an end in the 21st century, but further develop and grow, so as to properly honor this country’s past by furthering its rich legacy of humanity, empathy, and belief in a national spirit that transcends any stereotypical description of, “what makes an American”; there is literally nothing to it other than the love for, and desire for, better, regarding America and the rest of the world.
We must, therefore, do our part to help the peoples of the world, whether in our own nation, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, or anywhere in between, become better in condition than they are or have been previously. If that means helping the nations that these needy people are fleeing from with money, resources, and logistical suggestions, then so be it; however, if this means that we must accept this humanity, shelter them, call them our own American brothers and sisters, then we must absolutely do this too, and do this with great love and passion in our hearts. We cannot tell these worried and endangered people to remain in peril; we must hire no more ICE Agents or Border Police, but social workers and immigration officials to help get these people signed up and signed in as Americans proper, with social security cards and the like.
Allow for them to be trusted as Americans and, as history has proven, they will simply be Americans. As the famous American Statesman Henry L. Stimson used to state, “The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him…” These individuals will work as hard, if not harder than those Americans already living here, and they will commit statistically fewer crimes as Americans than their already previously-American counterparts as well. They will start and continue families in America, full of Americans, who will only add to the diverse cultural and economic makeup of this country. Soon, in fact, while they will always hold bits of their past with them, as all people do, they will eventually not even identify with many of the ideas or memories of their parents or grandparents, only those of other Americans; such is the process of assimilation in America and across the world.
Collectively telling a long-suffering people or peoples not to come to America is the ultimate mockery of America itself. With the history of America, one which simultaneously finds the nation welcoming immigrants from across the world, while also subjugating, to varying degrees which includes outright slavery, all those people who look or act too differently from Anglo-Saxon/Nordic folks, a racist and apathetic immigration policy, of which cannot appreciate and relate to the hardships of the lives of others, can only bring further disgrace and dishonor to an America that has frequently not lived up to its own mythologized history. This America is a land for all people, and one which all of the people deserve to cherish, no matter from where they originate from. The administration of the 45th President failed to consider these historical realities for his four year term as chief executive of the United States, and therefore helped in the perpetuation of great and tremendous human suffering, as his predecessors had done before him to varying degrees as well, of course; the administration of the 46th President would do well to learn from and accept this declaration of strict border admission and immigration toleration as a mistake early in the first year of the administration of Joe Biden.
They would do well abandon these explicitly anti-humanitarian messages and demonstrations in lieu of something that matches even a fraction of the timbre that words like “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” evoke within the hearts and minds of humanity the world over. That poem, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, herself the descendant of families that had all come to the United States from across Europe, sits engraved on a plaque, of which is attached to the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York City; that the Statue of Liberty is itself a symbol of humanitarianism, liberty and hope as well should go without saying.
Standing in New York Harbor, these words and this statue are eternal reminders of the responsibility this nation has to all the people of the world. To instead beg for the poor folks of these nations, like El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and so on, to simply not come to America at all, could hardly be more antithetical to the rich American legacy of mutual aid, empathy, compassion, and togetherness. As I previously stated, this nation oftentimes has not lived, or still does not live, up to its great mythos; regarding Slavery and the treatment of others based on superficial factors of perceived race, abilities, and so on, the nation continues to attempt to reconcile itself with this atrocious past.
Regarding immigration, however, it would be quite difficult to become any more regressive than we have already become, without disavowing our own rich, beautiful history of accepting people, if not at first, eventually. And so, we as current Americans simply cannot allow our nation to once again expose itself as further hypocrites to the cause for which it has historically, at least in theory, stood for; for many Americans, to be sure, the theoretical must become wholly practical, and quickly as well. Anyone who calls out in sincere need, beset by internal flaws, external dangers, and societal inequities as they might be, is an American, and this means the entire world over; to be an American is to love and care for the world, and not only those people on your block or in your state or country. This is the true spirit of America and what it sincerely means to be an American after all. International and personal compassion, comradery, and goodwill must once again, be as considered as American as baseball, apple pie, and the like.
