America is nothing if not a nation of immigrants. They are out lifeblood, our essential energy. We have a perfect right, nay an obligation to secure our border. However we have an equal and opposite obligation to keep our country open for needed immigrants, as does Canada; just as much as for our engineering enterprises and silicon valleys as for our agriculture and construction. Every new wave of immigrants has been initially reviled, then accepted, and then admired. Hereafter follows, by example, a fascinating list of some of the Jews (by birth to a Jewish mother*) who ended up in America, primarily as first or second generation immigrants. They were at first the "kikes", the great unwashed, whose immigration we limited at the time; then when refugee boats arrived from Nazi Germany, we banned them from our shores - most were sent back to Germany to almost certain death. Yet is not America today enriched beyond compare by all our diverse immigrants?
Immigration is a burning quandary in today's politics. Any reasonable moderate would agree that securing borders and selectively increasing legal immigration is advantageous to America. They would also agree that sensibly protecting jobs and providing an ethical resolution for long-term law-abiding tax-paying yet "illegal" immigrant families is long overdue. Yet extremism and political correctness ensures the left rails against secure borders while the right fights against integrating viable yet undocumented immigrant families. So nothing is done and all suffer who are connected with this insanity. Extremists call the shots while millions in and out of America are disenfranchised from the vast potential waiting for them - all to the detriment of our country.
Mexicans, Koreans and Indians all need a sensible American policy of immigration, not the irrational confusion we currently have. It should be based on our needs, on clear advantages for America, and not arbitrary family lineage, political circumstance or luck!
Paula Abdul Isaac Asimov Leonard Cohen Albert Einstein Dustin Hoffman Michael Douglas Harry Houdini Cary Grant Ralph Lauren Estee Lauder Liza Minnelli Mark Rothko Sen Penn Elvis Presley Paul Simon Steven Spielberg Barbra Streisand | Ellen Barkin Sergey Brin Bob Dylan Bill Maher Eric Schmidt Arthur Garfunkel Garry Kasparov "Peggy" Guggenheim Groucho Marx Joe Liberman Gwyneth Paltrow Helena Rubinstein Natalie Portman Man Ray Levi Strauss Meryl Streep Simon Wiesenthal | David Beckham Charlie Chaplin Sacha Cohen John Stewart Steve Ballmer Benny Goodman Larry King Harvey Keitel Stanley Kubrick Bette Midler Itzhak Perlman Sarah Jessica Parker Larry Page Howard Stern Vidal Sassoon Jerry Seinfeld Mark Zuckerberg |
*Note: By Jewish law, all born to Jewish mothers are automatically considered of Jewish descent.
Wall Street Journal - How Immigrant Entrepreneurs Turbocharge US trade
The following video was created by people who have an undisguised animosity and distrust for those who are simply different. It "outs" unambiguously the endemic hate and prejudice, historic canards and caricatures, lies and half-truths, that were openly prevalent in the early 20th century and still persist today; prejudices that will likely increase if resolution and balance do not evolve in our fractured immigration policy. Continuing to do nothing is not going to help the problem disappear. So borders largely remain open; hardworking, law-abiding, yet "illegal" immigrant families of 10 and 20 years remain excluded from viable options and eventual paths to citizenship; essential farmworkers, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, are largely excluded from successful immigration to the USA.