Would today’s USA let my grandfather in?
He was born about 1895 in Bialystok, now in Poland but then part of the Russian Empire. Ten years later, amid anarchy, revolution and shooting in the streets, including at his mother, he was smuggled out of Russia in a hay wagon. He came through Ellis Island and joined his older brothers in America, where an immigration official had suggested Smith would be an easier name than Schneydman. He attended public school in New York City, then quit to contribute to the family income. He shelved books at a Columbia University library. He became a shipping clerk for a clothing company. He started his own firm making ladies’ coats and suits.
Along the way he got married, had a son and a daughter, became an expert tennis player and ice skater. He rode the train to work with a real estate developer named Fred Trump. He invested in an ambitious project called the Empire State Building, and persuaded many relatives to do the same. He subscribed to The New York Times and the Metropolitan Opera. He bought a winter home in Florida — a penthouse. This was my grandfather.
Like so many desperate to come here now, he was fleeing violence. He didn’t speak any English. But he wasn’t separated from his mother or sent back to Russia or denied entry because he was the youngest brother and therefore, one of the last links on a “chain” of migration. He was given a chance to prove himself, and here I am. Here we all are.
I feel very fortunate that my ancestors arrived before the doors slammed shut on people trying to escape violence, war, poverty and religious persecution. Before we were, officially, no longer “a nation of immigrants.” Before Donald Trump.
Since the day he announced his presidential campaign, Trump has attacked and slandered immigrants. And since the day he became president, he has followed through with policies that are destructive to human beings, families, our economy, our safety, our values, our self-image, our standing in the world, our very exceptionalism.
It wasn’t always about ripping apart families seeking asylum. It’s a pileup that started in Trump’s first week with penalties for sanctuary cities, a “physical” border wall, aggressive pursuit of “transnational” gangs and drug cartels (as if we weren’t going after them already), and three versions of the travel ban barring our doors to people from several majority-Muslim countries.
There was a new hotline for “immigration crime” victims (though immigrants, even undocumented ones, commit less crime than native-born Americans). Enhanced vetting of refugees (as if they weren’t already being vetted) and visa applicants. Plans to cut legal immigration, end the visa lottery, end “chain migration” (which likely would have blocked my grandfather). To deny asylum for people escaping domestic and gang violence. To denaturalize naturalized citizens, because maybe they cheated (or maybe their name is slightly different on one form). Whatever it is, detain and deport. Those caught in the Trump net include a father delivering pizza to an Army base; an Iowa teen with 1 gram of marijuana; a troubled young man “escorted” to Mexico and killed by a gang; people at courthouses and hospitals; a Michigan dad exiled to a country he hadn’t seen in nearly 30 years; an Indiana restaurant owner whose wife voted for Trump because she thought he’d deport only “bad hombres.”
The latest tragic policy was to separate asylum-seeking parents from their children. An appalled judge gave the administration until Thursday to reunite everyone. That didn’t happen.
I’m not saying we should keep our immigration system exactly as it is. But let’s be smart and honest and humane about changing it, not biased and cruel. Nobody wants to wake up and realize that the Trump administration might think of something worse than all we’ve seen so far. Worse, even, than taking children from their parents.