Many of our writings may fairly be termed opinionated or questioning; others express observations and editorial comments; this writing, by contrast, has as its thematic intention the raising of the fundamental question: asa to why the subject of immigration is so problematic?
Generally defined, “Immigration” is the action of leaving one’s country of origin or domicile to live permanently in another country. Our thematic query relates to the empirical cause of the ubiquitous opposition to the understandable desire to live a better, often freer, life. It may be contextually emphasised that the United States of America (excluding its indigenous peoples) is populated universally by immigrants and their generational progeny.
It may be strangely observed that many, if not most, of the developed industrial countries share the same negativity; many have relevantly gone politically rightward, where national identity is historically or traditionally sacrosanct. Is it possibly the myth of superior or historically familiar folkways, atavistic fear of change, selfishness, fear of competition for jobs or resources, or just plain pernicious xenophobic bigotry?
The horrific policies of the autocratic-leaning Trump Administration in raising a Halloween-masked palace army of Gestapo-like goons to harass, arrest, incarcerate, and banish Hispanic people on the bogus suspicion of being criminals without a modicum of due process is an extreme and shameful demonstration of perverse xenophobia. Donald J. Trump and his MAGA cultish lemmings are an extreme, nightmarish example of hatred and loathing of immigrants, but not singularly atypical of the thematic inhumane conundrum. It is to be emphatically noted that many immigrants are fugitives, fleeing for their lives from autocratic tyranny. We might also relevantly note that Congress has historically provided a body of precedential legislation regarding fugitive and general immigration, and that the Statue of Liberty, holding her lamp to guide the “[poor and huddled masses…”] to a better and safer life in America, is tactically positioned in New York’s East River. to face outward from the Nation, in keeping with Emma Lazarus’ poetic invitation.
We, ourselves, are grateful, first-generation beneficiaries of immigrants who fled Soviet political repression and the brutality of religious pogroms. As typical of our experience as children of refugees, we have been educated, employed, paid taxes, and served in the military as proud and grateful American citizens.
We will readily (and perhaps gratefully) admit that we cannot conceive of a conceivably rational explanation for the selfish and pernicious bigotry that underlies the extant, universal prejudice against needy human beings, seeking a better life by immigration. As a practical matter you will have to ask those MAGA miscreants who selfishly celebrate the non-empathic elimination of USAID, the foolhady and ignorant elimination of the Nation’s .health and education agencies, the hobbling of Medicare and Medicaid, the reduction of student loans, the elimination of regulations assuring clean water and healthy food, the cruel opponents of abortion, the proponents of fossil fuel and guns, and sundry other saintly MAGA personalities.
-p.
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