Immigration policy: U.S. urgently needs an answer

Immigration policy: pride and prejudice

U.S. needs an answer

 

Gordon L. Weil

Immigration has become a bedrock issue in the U.S. and many European countries.  

Coming up with an American immigration policy has become so divisive that achieving consensus seems impossible.  Two presidents have brought the country to the point where a solution is stalemated.

A cornerstone of Donald Trump’s presidency has been ending unauthorized or illegal immigration.  He has succeeded in almost shutting down illegal entries over the southern border.  He has also pushed efforts to remove long-time, productive residents whose elimination would boost the number against whom he had moved.  He now targets legal immigration.

Joe Biden allowed foreigners to pour across the southern border.  He lacked an immigration policy, perhaps because he had other priorities.  He clearly reversed Trump’s first term approach, possibly to appeal to minority voters.  Instead, he created broad public concern that the U.S. could not even control its own borders.  He set the stage for the Trump revival.

The original Americans, aside from the Indians, were immigrants from western Europe.  Racially they and their descendants are white.   Whatever the Constitution and laws might say, their followers have expected that the country would remain predominantly white, and Blacks would remain subservient.  Underlying the issue of immigration policy is race. 

The most obvious expression of this sentiment was the exclusion of Chinese for many decades.  Today’s unfounded claim that the U.S. is a Christian country carries the implicit message that the white founders set binding terms for the future.  Minorities remain at the sufferance of the majority.

Demographic projections indicate that the U.S. will be majority non-white in two or three decades.  If voters would cling to white control, they could oppose immigration on the grounds that new arrivals will accelerate change in the nation’s racial make-up.  To some, the election of President Obama was a warning.

Humanitarian and economic causes have led millions to seek new homes in countries with stable, democratic governments and the opportunity for better lives.  Some want asylum and many want economic and social freedom.  The response can be a mixture of pride and prejudice.

Their influx has raised concerns in potential host countries.  People worry about the economic and social change resulting from major additions to the national population and the political power of the newcomers that could disrupt traditional patterns of control.

In the U.S., the issues that arise from immigration have become embedded in the basic discourse about the nation’s future.  Some concepts are widely accepted, while others are seriously challenged.

Americans generally understand that their country is a nation of immigrants.  Waves of people from foreign countries have flowed into the U.S. throughout virtually all its existence.  Each group has faced resistance and even discrimination in the decades after their arrival.  African Americans, who did not migrate willingly, suffer exceptional indignity.

Immigration has been a major source of population growth.  More people has meant more workers able to operate the tools of virtually all aspects of the nation’s stunning economic growth.  Their growing personal prosperity has created a burgeoning consumer economy.  American economic greatness has depended on immigration.

Moving beyond the sentiment that the national territory was large enough to accommodate millions more, the U.S. adopted an immigration policy.   While new arrivals should continue to be welcomed, the country could reasonably meter the flow to ensure stability.

Trump has been intent on expelling as many unauthorized residents as possible.  It proved relatively easy to identify long-term, law-abiding illegal entrants and attempt to expel them to make his numbers look good.

The public concern about immigration did not focus on such people but rather on recent and lawbreaking immigrants.  While reassured about border security, the public was not enthusiastic about the removal of contributing community members or separating parents from children, who might be citizens.  Nor was ICE’s denial of their due process rights.

Trump wants to reverse the citizenship of immigrant children born in the U.S. by a new interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  He blocks the entry of people from some countries.  He wants green card applicants to leave the country and reapply from their home countries.

He has recently indicated that he would like to roll back legal immigration.  The number of legal immigrants and refugees was virtually identical in 2024 to what it was in 2015.  There is no rising tide to be blocked unless race is the issue.

Immigration is vital to the economy.  In 2023, immigrants contributed $2.6 trillion, about 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product.  They paid $492 billion in taxes.  After the slowdown in immigration, American economic growth may slow.

Trump’s total anti-immigrant policy, reaching productive residents, will reduce the size of the U.S. population and of the American economy.  The Democrats offer no alternative.  This is where bipartisan leadership must begin.