A national idea
Immigrants may come from different lands, but all envision the American dream.
It was like a scene from a Frank Capra movie. The Statue of Liberty sits in the background, just over the shoulder of an aspiring politician who addresses a balmy Labor Day crowd about the immigrant tale that is America.
“They came to make America work. They didn’t ask what this country could do for them but what they could do to make this refuge the greatest home of freedom in history. They brought with them courage, ambition and the values of family, neighborhood, work, peace and freedom. They came from different lands but they shared the same values, the same dream.” That was Ronald Reagan in 1980. Try to cast the speaking role with a member of today’s Republican Party and you’re more likely to end up directing a fantasy film. The conservative movement, which had long celebrated immigration as proof of the American dream, is descending into nativist tendencies that have too frequently been an ugly part of our national culture.
A recent poll by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin asked state voters if they agreed with this statement: “Newcomers from other countries enrich Texans with their hard work and values.”
Only 40 percent of Republicans agreed with the sentiment. When the same questioned was asked just four years ago, 52 percent of Republicans said immigrants enrich our state with their hard work and values. (Three-quarters or more of Democrats and liberals agreed with the statement in both 2014 and 2018.)
The nature of immigrants hasn’t changed in four years. What has changed is the soul of the Republican Party.
It is easy to blame President Donald Trump for this change, and he certainly has played a major role. But he is far from alone. Texas Republican leaders like Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz have used repeated falsehoods and exaggerations to whip up paranoia about border security and immigrants.
The constant distorted portrayal of immigrants as criminals and leeches has taken its toll on Republicans. The recent University of Texas poll showed that 62 percent of Republicans thought the U.S. allowed too much legal immigration. To reiterate: Not just illegal immigration — legal immigration.
Politicians who want to halt legal immigration to our growing state might as well throw a bomb into our churning economic engine.
According to the American Immigration Council, Texas had more than 360,000 immigrant business owners in 2015, accounting for 27.5 percent of all self-employed Texas residents. These immigrant entrepreneurs generated $8.1 billion in business income.
The image of immigrants as important contributors to our state and nation rarely makes its way into conservative conversations about immigration. Instead, conservatives have gotten trapped in an echo chamber that focuses on crime and other alleged misdeeds.
This change in conservative attitudes is having a detrimental effect on our country. We can’t have a serious debate about reforming a broken immigration system. We can’t even take the clearly moral step of providing legal protections to young adults who were brought to this country illegally as children.
Abraham Lincoln dealt with a similar nativist sentiment in his day, when he rejected the anti-immigrant stance of the Know-Nothing Party. His words from an 1855 letter to a friend are apt today.
“As a nation, we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
If Republicans want to reclaim their mantle as the part of Lincoln and Reagan, they must actively reject the Know-Nothing nativism of their president and his supporters and vote in November for the candidates (no matter which party) who know that immigrants may come to our nation from different lands, but all contribute to the same American Dream.