As I flew over the country last week it once again amazed me
how little of our vast land mass is populated.
And it struck me how pathetically selfish we are to restrict
immigration. We are the richest nation
in the world with the largest usable land mass and the most productive economy. We are a land of immigrants and a melting pot
of cultures and ethnic groups. We have
the occasional attribute of being incredibly compassionate and generous. Yet we fret endlessly over the flow of
immigrants over our southern border as if it were about to deal a death blow to
our economy and culture.
Let’s be honest. The
immigration fear that we have is mostly about Americans of Northern European
heritage becoming a minority. It is not about
economic stability or the threat of terrorism.
In terms of percentage, the immigrant flow now is no larger than our
historical immigration. But the current
immigrants are generally non-European, and most are Spanish-speaking, which
makes us nervous about the potential impact and change in the culture and
character of our country.
The fact is that immigration has always been resented by
many if not most Americans. Each wave of
immigration (Irish, German, Chinese, Eastern European, Italian, Jewish, etc.)
has seemed alien and foreign to the current inhabitants. It is a sad habit of human beings to resist
change and fear its impact on their lives.
Despite being the most stridently self-proclaimed Christian nation on
earth, we have rarely been able to enthusiastically embrace Jesus’s exhortation
to ‘welcome the stranger’.
But there are also times when we have had the grace to
celebrate our diversity and proclaim the positive effect of immigration on our
land and life. There are times when we
realize how the energy and creativity of immigrants have transformed our
country and made it better.
I believe we have the capacity to take in all the immigrants
and refugees who are escaping war, gang violence, economic hardship and
disease, and employ them usefully to grow our economy and enrich our
culture. Who is better positioned to do
this than the richest country in the world with a long history of receiving
immigrants? We could grow to ten times
our current population and still occupy a tiny portion of this great land. Our rich traditions of political stability, entrepreneurship,
strong work ethic, minimal corruption and social harmony are strong enough to absorb
a massive influx and transform it into American citizenry with all its variety
and energy.
Is it naïve to think that we could do this? Would it overwhelm our institutions and
create havoc? It would definitely be
challenging, but immigration is self-regulating to an extent anyway as job
opportunities rise and fall. And if it
became a rallying cry for our country and a means to overcome the present political
turmoil, then it would be well worth a few challenges!
Would Northern
Europeans become a minority within the U.S.?
Probably, but so what? Is our
culture really a ‘Northern European’ culture?
What foods do we eat now? What
clothes do we wear, what arts do we celebrate, what music do we love?
Our culture is
already a mix of world cultures and it is all the richer for that fact. Inter-marriage quickly eliminated many of the
stark boundaries of prior immigration waves.
Who even notices whether someone’s ancestry is Italian, Spanish,
Romanian, Russian or Polish these days?
So I say ‘open the doors wide’! If we can be a beacon of light to the
downtrodden and the desperate, what better role can there be? In the long run, it is wiser for us to help
transform the world through unparalleled generosity than to take a bunker
mentality of ‘America first’ into a dystopian world future.
