Immigration and the 50 million people in this country who were foreign born have been an unfair target for both political parties in this election. America needs immigrants. The economy would fall apart without their work.
From talk of mass deportations to less extreme calls to secure the border, scapegoating newcomers is bipartisan. But politicians must be reminded that there is no greater long-term folly than shutting down what has historically been this country’s greatest strength.
Without immigrants, documented or otherwise, there would be nothing like what we understand to be the American economy.
There would be no sustainable food production and delivery sector. There would be no robust construction. Millions of small businesses would not exist. We would have far fewer doctors, researchers, scientists, artists and academics, and be well behind at the Nobel prizes and the Olympics. Immigrants are everywhere: the late mothers of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris were born elsewhere.
If even a fraction of the current foreign-born population suddenly left, social programs like Social Security would careen toward insolvency as the workforce shrunk and the tax base collapsed. The effects wouldn’t just be felt in some diffuse national way. Many individual cities and states would feel acute pain, reentering population spirals that immigration had staved off and having trouble funding municipal operations.
All these practical considerations are in addition to the clear moral barbarity of policies that would target longtime undocumented immigrants or those seeking asylum at the border. In the former case, we challenge anyone to make a sensible argument for why someone who has lived and worked without incident in a place for 10 years or more, often with extensive family and social ties in the community and U.S. citizen spouses or children, should be deported. What is the benefit?
If there are any efforts to do this, the resounding and unified response from our local leadership should be: no way. We cannot cooperate with immigration enforcement authorities more than is strictly required. Our identity and millions of actual residents are hanging in the balance, and we owe it to ourselves and each other to stand firm.
Far better is to bring people into compliance with the law and regularize their status. Republican hero Ronald Reagan signed a significant amnesty in 1986, less than 40 years ago, in part because his party once understood that the alternatives favor no one.
As for asylum, we already do have laws that are supposed to protect the right to seek these humanitarian protections. No provision in the law allows for these rights to be suspended when it’s politically opportune. There is certainly plenty to fix about the chaotic nature of the system now, but that’s Congress’ job, with a view toward what will actually help the nation. Let Congress act.
