Issue Position: Immigration

Issue Position

I can think of no undertaking more American than immigration. All of us, save those who can trace their ancestry back to the original inhabitants of this continent, are here as a result of someone in their family history immigrating to this country, or having been brought here as an enslaved person (not the same as immigrating!). At what point in our historical timeline, do we make the cutoff between American citizens, and immigrants? How many generations back do we need to go, before we can say, "We were here first," and therefore have the right to forbid others their chance?

Today, according to Census Bureau data, immigrants comprise about 14 percent of our population, approximately forty-three million out of 323 million people. Including their U.S. -- born children, immigrants make up about 27 percent of U.S. inhabitants.

In addition, there are approximately eleven million undocumented immigrants in the country, more than half of whom have lived in the country for more than a decade. Nearly one third have U.S. born children. Central American asylum seekers, many of whom are minors who have fled violence in their home countries, make up a growing share of those who cross the U.S.- Mexico border.

The United States granted over one million individuals legal permanent residency in 2016, more than two-thirds of whom were admitted based on family reunification. Others obtained residency because they brought with them employment-based preferences -- twelve percent. Ten percent were refugees, four percent were admitted for their diversity, and three percent sought asylum.

This is who we are, or who we were at some point in our past. We must remember the value that we brought when our families first arrived in this country. And we must never forget the value that immigration has always had in our national development, culture and economy.

Seeing immigrants as criminals and job-stealers is an easy, time honored political device for creating a target, whom those who feel the brunt of our economic failures, can blame. This is not only a blatant, disingenuous falsehood, but diminishes us as a nation. It creates a pretense which fosters bigotry and hatred moving us farther away from the promise of a country able to accommodate all peoples, accepting all of our attributes together for the betterment of the common good.

In order to maintain the spirit of the words displayed in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, we must allow for a pathway to citizenship for people from every nation. Of course we must adhere to reasonable regulations and guidelines, and keep a responsible watch on immigration activities, including finding appropriate means to ensure that those crossing our borders are here under legal circumstances.

We must also find an appropriate, American-spirit driven balance between unrestricted open arms and walled isolation, in order to resolve the questions regarding the legal status of the millions of undocumented immigrants currently living in the country, as well as those who come to share in the dream for generations to come.

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