The U.S. can’t be myopic on immigration

Eighty years ago, in July 1938, representatives from 32 countries such as the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway and Sweden met at Évian-desBains, France, to discuss the “Jewish refugee problem.” The conference was an abject failure. For other than the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, no country welcomed those doomed and stateless souls (since the Nuremberg Laws were enacted) who Germany was presumably willing to let leave.

The Statue of Liberty, also known as the Mother of Exiles, proclaims on her pedestal, in part: “Give me your [other nations’] 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 up my lamp beside the golden door!”

Yes, it is a different world than it was more than a century ago when immigration helped populate our country. And every country has an obligation to control its borders and those who are permitted to enter; anything less would be chaos. What is troublesome is the callous, myopic and perhaps xenophobic approach that the current and past administrations and Congress have taken.

If demographics is destiny, then in view of our country’s abysmal birthrate, immigration is vital. Perhaps everything is political. Yet, perhaps our elected officials could put party aside and meet to find a constructive way to help our country with those yearning to be free. Anything less fails to live up to the hope expressed by Emma Lazarus’ poem. JON SCHMERLING

Mt. Lebanon