Elizabeth Morgan | The USA and immigration: Such hypocrisy!

The plaque inside the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour has the sonnet by Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus, which includes the lines:

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

The Statue of Liberty became a symbol of welcome to immigrants.

Migration is a part of human existence. People have been moving from place to place since the advent of man. People have always desired to find a better life. It is said that the original people who populated North America possibly travelled from Europe across the frozen Bering Strait.

The USA is a country of immigrants, and even the indigenous peoples, nearly 10 million of them before 1492, could be included in this. The Europeans, starting with the Spanish, first moved into areas, now part of the USA, mainly Florida, New Mexico, Texas, and California, in the 16th century. The British started their migration in the 17th century. Many of those who came to the ‘new’ land were fleeing oppression and poverty in the Europe. In the 19th century into the early 20th century, immigrants, many being the poor, oppressed and dispossessed, came to the USA from all over Europe. Emma Lazarus was involved in assisting Jewish European immigrants to settle in the USA.

AFRICAN AMERICANS

As students of Black American history know, the first Africans were brought to the USA as enslaved labourers in 1619. The original people of African descent were forced ‘immigrants’ to the USA. It took a brutal civil war from 1861-1865 for slavery to be abolished in the USA. The right of black Americans to US citizenship was established in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. This ensured that people of colour born in the USA were automatically citizens of the country. The Trump administration is trying to repeal this amendment. It took nearly another 100 years for black Americans to achieve civil rights with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

It should be noted that there were some immigrants from Scotland and Ireland, for instance, for whom the ship manifest declared them ‘slaves’, indentured labourers or transported prisoners.

CARIBBEAN AMERICANS

People from Jamaica and other British Caribbean territories, also a region of migrants, have been moving to the USA from before US independence in 1776. After the civil war, men from the British Caribbean went as migrant labourers (farm workers) to the USA. At one point in Barbados, concerned about overpopulation on that island, the British government encouraged migration to the USA. Jamaicans were migrating to the USA in increasing numbers to seek work from the 1860s. Sir Alexander Bustamante, Norman Marley’s mother, Margaret Manley, and Marcus Garvey were among these immigrants. One of the oldest communities of people of Jamaican descent in the USA is in Hartford, Connecticut. Migration to the US continued steadily through the years.

In Cuba, the USA was a pseudo coloniser and the action of Americans there contributed to the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This led to the flood of Cuban immigrants to the USA under a very accommodating US immigration policy.

IMMIGRANT ANCESTRY OF MEMBERS OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The paternal grandfather of President Donald Trump migrated to the USA from Germany and his mother and her family came to the USA from Scotland. Two of President Trump’s three wives were immigrants from Europe, from the former Czechoslovakia and Slovenia. The vice-president, J. D. Vance, has Scots/Irish ancestry and his wife is of Indian heritage. The parents of Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio are immigrants from Cuba. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, has Jewish Russian ancestry. Kristi Noem, secretary for homeland security, is of Norwegian ancestry. The family of Tom Homan, the border czar, quite likely has European roots. These are now the people responsible for the current hardline US immigration policy.

Have immigrants contributed to the US economy and culture?

The answer to this is a resounding YES. Immigrants, whether voluntary or not, have built the USA. Just watch the History Channel and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) channels and see who the titans of industry and the great inventors were. Many were immigrants or the children of immigrants. The majority of immigrants to the USA, as the data shows, are hard-working, productive people.

Those who are undocumented are included in this number and clearly, they are being employed by people in the USA.

Immigrants everywhere have brought their culture, religion, music, food and language with them. They have enriched their adopted countries. The first generation may find it difficult to assimilate, but their children and grandchildren do not.

HYPOCRISY

Today, the immigrants coming to the USA are mainly from the Global South seeking a better life, as it is projected by the USA to them. The US marketing, through media platforms, is very effective. These immigrants are often the brightest and best, and some with significant financial resources. Recall, too, that the US and others have contributed to the under-development of countries in the South.

Every country has the right to protect its borders and to have laws regulating immigration. Countries even have the right to protect their identities. However, it is wrong to make scapegoats of immigrants from the Global South, acting as though, in general, they are criminals and the worst of humanity. This discrimination is not new, though. It has been a part of US history – against Native Americans, Latino Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans, Hawaiian Americans, Irish Americans and Italian Americans.

Nevertheless, the USA would not be what it was, and is, without the contribution of all these peoples.

It should be intolerable to every American when a US president, the stock of immigrants himself, denigrates and dehumanises immigrants, referring to them as “garbage”, “pet eaters”, and coming from “s...hole” countries.

This is vulgar and hypocritical, and, indeed, should be unacceptable to everyone.

Elizabeth Morgan is a specialist in international trade policy and international politics. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.