Immigrants deserve a chance at a prosperous future

When I moved to Pittsburgh in the summer of 2006, I had recently earned a graduate degree from a college outside of New York City. I didn’t have a job or prospects of finding a job. I could barely navigate through Pittsburgh’s intricate one- way streets, hills and tunnels. After a couple of years, however, I not only found employment, but I grew to love this city.

Many of the true immigrants who arrived here from Eastern Europe were unskilled, poor and unable to converse in English. Despite these roadblocks, those who arrived from distant lands became the very people who helped make Pittsburgh, as well as America, great.

They were the people who slaved in Carnegie’s furnaces, the people who cooked and cleaned so that the more well- off citizenry didn’t have to. My own ancestors, from Italy ( on my mother’s side), arrived unable to speak the language. My father’s people arrived from England and Scotland, not long after the Mayflower. All were poor and mostly unskilled; all labored to achieve their bit of the American dream.

The Trump administration announced new criteria for those seeking permanent residency and/ or citizenship ( Aug. 13, “Trump to Deny Green Cards for Poorer Immigrants”). Due to take effect on Oct. 15, the “Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds” policy will, according to the PG article, “set new standards for applicants seeking legal permanent residency in the United States, criteria that will skew the process in favor of the highly skilled, high- income immigrants President Donald Trump covets.”

Isn’t it our duty as the children and grandchildren of immigrants, those who saw America as a beacon, a place where they could be reborn, to at least give them a chance, so they, too, can provide a safe and prosperous future for their children and grandchildren, for America and the world?

JASON IRWIN Edgewood