Fixing Immigration

Our history is one thing. Our bloodlines another. None of us are pure American other than Native American Indians. That’s it. Period. Discussion over.

The rest of us have bloodlines, native cultures and family from different nations. All of us. In the very early days of what became America – 1500’s and early 1600’s, most of us heralded from European nations. A lot of English, French and Scandinavians. Some Spanish and Portuguese, too.

With the slave trade in full operation, European traders captured African natives and loaded them on boats. After weeks of sailing the high seas, perhaps half of the ‘live’ cargo of slaves survived. They were sold to plantation owners in the southern regions of America. In this convoluted manner, Africans were added to our American bloodlines.

Indentured servants from all over Europe also were brought to America. These were poor people who wanted to emigrate to America and they did through sponsorship of wealthy families who paid for the servants with an agreement to be freed after paying off their indentured value. Perhaps 5 years or more led to freedom. Still, most of these folks were of European stock.

Intermarriage of bloodlines and nationalities led to more diversity in America’s population. Black and white – mulatto – legacies formed and further diversified the population. Native Americans, too, were slowly absorbed into the national bloodline, weakening their own but strengthening the rest of us.

So it is that very few individuals in the USA can count themselves native. Or pure anything.

It does not count that you were born here. Or how many years ago your family immigrated to America. We all are immigrants.

That alone should be reason enough to open our borders and welcome all comers to our nation. Yes, such a policy shift would invite chaos and overcrowding, but prevailing competition for jobs, livelihoods and raw resources, would provide limiting forces to overcrowding.

In 2018 we need immigrants for a host of reasons. First, they increase our markets for consumption of goods and services provided by entrepreneurs. That’s a purely economic positive for immigration. Second, immigrants come with skills and talents that we don’t already have here in America; immigrants provide these to our mix and are well paid for them. Third, we need manpower to do the lower level jobs citizens already here don’t want to do; immigrants readily perform this work to secure their livelihoods. Agricultural workers are the largest segment of such immigrants. Service employees are another large segment of immigrant workers. We need these people. Just ask fruit and produce farmers if they need a ready supply of immigrant labor! They will say yes in a trice.

Fourth, we need immigrants to spice up our culture lines, perspective and freshness of spirit. They are joyous and valuable people ready and willing to make a go of life in America. We will always need this ‘can-do’ spirit. The more the merrier.

Fifth, immigrants – legal or not – pay a lot of taxes and buy a lot of goods and services in the American economy. This is a huge positive and should not be ignored, ever.

If immigration is so positive, why then are so many people willing to make this a dire political issue? There are no downsides to immigration. Yes, there are management issues to work on, but not barriers to immigration itself.

Political parties across the board have wanted to fix the immigration system for a long time. At least 30 years of gridlock over this issue has been embarrassingly present in our culture. And for all the wrong reasons.

Isn’t it about time we bit the bullet on this, admitted we have been terribly wrong, and will now fix it? Winners all around if we do. No losers in sight. Unless we don’t fix the problem, that is. If no fix is made, we all lose. No one wins. All lose. Including America itself. Who we are, what we are, and what we will become, is based solely on immigrants melting together into a wonderfully, diverse cultural stew.

Welcome to all, old and new. May you find happiness here as we have.

January 19, 2018