Tuesday, January 24, 2017
By Richard Parker
The Dallas Morning News
As the Trump era unfolds, it will be judged in many ways, but none more so than by how it, and by extension America, treats its immigrants. Their cause – our cause, actually – is the civil-rights movement of our time.
People born abroad now constitute 43 million residents of the 50 states. Where previous presidents measured us on how we treated our poor, our impoverished or our elderly, we are now at a similar junction with our neighbors from Latin America, Asia and Africa. The nation’s fortunes will rise and fall on their shoulders. This is how Donald Trump may be measured. Certainly it will be how we are measured.
Trump enters the White House on a weird, dissonant note, like a key out of tune on the piano of history. He won, fair and square, sure. But he’s chosen to mire himself in one fight after another, on the side of the Russians and against, well, nearly everybody, turning the first months of his term into a foreign-policy battle, though he claimed he was all about jobs, first.
Beyond the speeches, the parade and the black-tie galas, there is a real America out there. And it is – in part – composed of an aging, white suburban and rural population. But let’s not get carried away. America’s future has already arrived. The 43 million immigrants –documented and otherwise – are here. Most are not going home. And Trump is already slowly backing away from his promise of a deportation force, much like the idea of Mexico paying for a wall.
Put this into perspective: Foreign-born residents of our shores now make up nearly 1 in 10 of the nation’s population. More than 7 million of them live in Texas, second only to California. These figures are approaching historic highs not seen since the mid-1880s and 1920s, which brought Jews, Italians and central Europeans to the U.S. During most of that period, immigrants arrived to utterly open shores. Contrary to popular conception, there was no orderly arrival. Many just got off a boat and walked ashore.
Each wave was battered by its new home. The Irish? Not even white, it was claimed, and put to labor that was more menial and even deadlier than work done by animals because Irish people were considered less valuable. The Italians? Papist infiltrators, murderers and thieves. The Chinese? Rioted against in the West, killed randomly and shunned. Not to mention the Mexicans and Peruvians. Yet each time the most fundamental note of the American symphony sounded to correct us: the Constitution.
Tourist visas
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished national quotas for foreign policy reasons, to encourage friendly relations with Asia, Africa and Latin America at the height of the Cold War. The law allowed immigrants to sponsor relatives. And so they came. Around 2000, after a series of economic calamities, the Mexican diaspora sent record numbers north. Today, that’s all over. A relative few Central Americans come north instead. Now, most illegal immigrants never see a border. People arrive at an airport on a tourist visa and never leave.
So that’s reality, but here is our higher calling: defending these people. Most are working, contributing members of society. The Army has concluded that foreign-born people make better soldiers than native-born. Immigrants will keep our workforce young, and they already pay payroll and sales taxes, documented or undocumented.
Legalizing the latter would mean shrinking the deficit by $200 billion. So, a path to citizenship for them is crucial to the American future, as age creeps up on a country that will need to care for many more elderly people than ever before.
And we all know at least one. My friend Steve came during the Mexican diaspora and stayed; I know his hard-working ways, his wife, children and family. And I’m not turning him in. Here is why. We are a nation of laws, yes. And the law compels me to do no such thing for what is a misdemeanor.
For the religious, a first duty is to minister to those in need. Christ himself chose the company of prostitutes and thieves. But if, instead, you want to change the skin color of people coming to this country, change the law. If you want to stop everyone from coming, change the law. Better to fix the law and lift these people into the American life. They are our new brothers and sisters. That is our song, as people.
There can be no wall, no mass deportation of 11 million people; Europe tried it after World War II, and 1 million ethnic Germans perished. And here’s why. Because a just society is measured, always, by how it cares for its weakest.
This may be Trump’s presidency, but it’s our America.
Richard Parker is the lecturer-of-practice in journalism at Texas State University. He wrote this for The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.