“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the door!”
-The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, inscribed into the Statue of Liberty
Immigration was one of the most frequently mentioned topics by former President Donald Trump in the presidential debate on Sept. 10. “Migrant crime” is a term he often used against Vice President Kamala Harris. Nothing from that night frustrated me more than the fact that she did not once push back on his rhetoric. There is no migrant crisis: The “issue” has been incorrectly pontificated by Republicans looking for political gain.
First, the only place that documents crime rate by immigration status, the state of Texas, shows that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than natural born citizens. So, “migrant crime” bears little distinction from crime itself and happens at lower frequencies. Violent and property crime rates have been plummeting overall since the 90s. Any anecdote you may hear that people feel unsafe because crime is rampant or illegal aliens have arrived to murder and rape our citizens is little more than dog whistling. But facts over feelings, right?
This rhetoric is used by politicians to get American citizens to fear innocent people for political gain. Clearly, the statistics show you should not fear immigrants inflicting harm upon you more than any other American citizen.
Another common argument is that immigrants, undocumented or not, dilute economic mobilization for American citizens by taking jobs, lowering wages and stealing social programs without paying taxes. First, despite record border crossings in 2023, unemployment for American citizens was also a record low 3.6%. The Congressional Budget Office “also projects that high rates of net immigration through 2026 will support economic growth, adding an average of about 0.2 percentage points to the annual growth rate of real GDP over the 2024–2034 period.” Also, it is commonly understood that immigrants take jobs, typically manually labor intensive ones, that native-born workers don’t have high demand for. The Economist analyzed historical trends of removing unskilled migrant labor and saw no effect on U.S. wage growth. Most of all, scholars have found that granting citizenship to more immigrants would boost U.S. economic prosperity.
Yes, the Biden administration oversaw record high crossings at the southern border. But, the idea that only we are entitled to American land is pompous given our appropriation of it from Native Americans 400 years ago. Despite that, I love America: It truly is a land of opportunity for me and there is no place on earth with more diversity. And that’s because of the ideals we were built upon. The words inscribed on the literal emblem of our nation, the Statue of Liberty, describe us as a nation for refuge, taking in the oppressed and beaten down and offering new prospects. If we abandon that, the founding ideals of America have died and what makes our country great becomes a relic of the past.
“Legal – good. Illegal – bad,” says Senator Ted Cruz when discussing immigration. This sentiment is shared by many on the right. The United States is a notoriously difficult country to gain access to. In fact, most of the “illegal” immigrants in the United States are people who overstayed authorized visas, not border crossers as is stereotypically depicted. This system hurts us deeply. Kunal Bahl is an Indian entrepreneur who went to the University of Pennsylvania but was sent back to India in 2007 because of a visa issue. He subsequently founded Snapdeal, one of the 10 biggest online marketplaces in India. We spent the money to educate him and sent him to innovate elsewhere; how does that make fiscal sense? 40% of American nobel laureates are immigrants. Making America an exclusive club may seem appealing, but it hurts us in the long run.
32 million people attempted to become permanent residents in 2018 and only 1 million were granted it. The Cato Institute says, “Legal immigration is less like waiting in line and more like winning the lottery: it happens, but it is so rare that it is irrational to expect it in any individual case.” Despite Emma Lazarus’ sentiment, most wealthy countries accept more immigrants than we do. In fact, if we accepted all 32 million who applied for legal status, we would have a share of immigrants as a proportion of our population similar to Canada (a country whose homicide rate per capita is third of ours and whose wages and employment rates have grown at steadier rates than ours). Legal immigration is an impossible expectation.
Asylum seekers and lottery applicants face the most selective yet categorically arbitrary processes. Asylum decisions have been criticized for racial bias toward Europeans and the U.S. visa lottery (known as the Diversity Visa) is set up to favor smaller countries such as Luxembourg and disadvantage large ones like India, China, and Nigeria. It’s fascinating to me that the migrants politicians accuse of “invading our country” are rarely the hundreds of thousands of white Ukrainian refugees we’ve settled. I believe that the fact that we are settling those refugees is a beautiful thing: once again, America’s greatness comes in our ability to take anyone from any situation across the globe and give them the opportunity to thrive. I am in awe that we took in hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors. Why didn’t we do the same for the Congolese after King Leopold II committed a similar genocide in their country? Why are there no efforts to resettle Afghani refugees?
In fact, there seems to be hostility towards resettling people from Islamic states or from Central America. The Trump administration asked asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their asylum application was processed under their Migrant Protection Protocols act. Death often awaits these asylum seekers as they attempt to flee gang violence or other immediate life-threats. What’s the point of having an asylum system if we send these people back to die of the very thing they were running from while we consider their case? It’s frankly absurd that we assume that people who traveled hundreds of miles to ask for our protection are lying. Trump’s zero-tolerance policy led to stark images of families being separated with the justification of deterrence. Three-year olds are asked to plead their case in immigration court. Should children have to justify asking for help?
Last week, the Hopkins Republicans invited Mark Krikorian, a famous anti-immigration advocate whose think-tank, the Center for Immigration Studies, is linked to white nationalist groups, to give a talk on immigration. I’m glad that all voices are getting platforms, but his views are consistently unfounded. He posed that legal Muslim diaspora groups in San Diego helped radicalize and purposefully abetted 9/11 conspirators. Yet, the group showed no evidence of anti-western sentiment and there remains no link between immigration and terrorism.
Emma Lazarus and our founding fathers would be disappointed that we no longer pride ourselves in being a safehaven of opportunity for all people. Republicans and Donald Trump have abandoned America’s founding ideals. His plan to intern more than 14 million undocumented immigrants in preparation for deportation could cost as much as 1 trillion dollars and many estimate it to cost each taxpayer over $10,000. If you are willing to pay for this, then I apologize as I have not laid out the moral argument well enough. Don’t let politicians make you fear your fellow humans in an effort to take you off their scent — fear the politicians instead.
Neil Mahto is a Sophomore majoring in Chemistry and English. He is the Opinions editor for The News-Letter.
