Immigration – Open the Doors Wide

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.