Years ago, when I worked in radio, a friend and co-worker told me a story about his grandfather, an immigrant from Russia. His grandfather was a wealthy man who was concerned about the rise of the Bolsheviks and the rapidly deteriorating security of his native land. He packed wads of cash – Russian currency – into his luggage and set sail. He would have more than enough cash to rent a place to stay and provide for himself while he found his footing in America. His ship was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean when the Russian government collapsed, along with its currency. All that money my friend’s grandfather thought would subsidize his entry into a new life was suddenly worthless. “He used it for toilet paper,” his grandson told me.
I thought of this story while reading about the Trump administration’s new immigration policy, which is designed to reduce overall legal immigration and limit it by wealth. If there had been such a wealth qualifier at the time, my friend’s grandfather would have been eligible for legal residency when he left Russia, but not when he arrived in New York. He sailed to the west a rich man and arrived here a poor one. His descendants have prospered and added to our national fabric, as have many Americans, most of whose ancestors came here as humble immigrants yearning for the promise of America.
The new immigration policy Trump announced this week does not include racial quotas, which would likely be invalidated by the Supreme Court. Instead, the new policy focuses on income and wealth, which could have a similar effect, given that wealthy white immigrants are more likely to satisfy the new criteria than people of color.
The new policy expands the definition of “public charge” in immigration law. An applicant for lawful entry into the U.S. can be denied permission to enter the country if there is evidence the applicant would be a “public charge,” which means, “primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” Historically, that would exclude recipients of cash payments, such as welfare, unless they could prove they would become self-sufficient and not reliant on welfare. The criteria have been expanded to include publicly-funded health care, nutrition, and housing programs, and the ability of applicants to rebut evidence of dependency has been eliminated. Under the new rules, if an applicant has received at least 12 months of public benefits within a 36-month period, or is likely to, based on the government’s analysis, he or she will be kept out of the country. The result will be two-fold: potential applicants for lawful entry into the U.S. will be less likely to claim public benefits, and there will be fewer immigrants allowed to stay. Since they will include information about income, assets, health and language ability, the new rules favor richer and whiter applicants. Immigrants with an income at least 250 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines and private health insurance will move to the front of the line. The administration estimates the federal and state governments will save $21 billion over ten years because potential applicants for legal entry will forego applying for governmental benefits.
But is the requirement that applicants for legal entry “stand on their own two feet,” as Acting Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli put it in an unfortunate rewrite of Emma Lazarus’ words on the Statue of Liberty, a good idea? Data suggest it is not.
The notion that the country will be better off by banning poor immigrants in favor of wealthy ones ignores human nature and lessons of history. Consider “the immigrant paradox,” discussed by Anna Sutherland in an article for the Institute of Family Studies in 2016. She wrote that “the sons and daughters of immigrants are more successful than not just their parents but also ‘youth from similar racial/ethnic backgrounds whose parents were born in the U.S.’” Sutherland quoted a study published in Social Science Research that found children of immigrants “were more likely than those from nonimmigrant families to be enrolled in college [68% vs. 53%] or to be working or studying [85% vs. 77%], and they were less likely to have a criminal record [8% vs. 25%] or to have had a child [8% vs. 17%].” “That was in spite of coming from households with less educated parents and lower family incomes,” she added. Children of immigrants have given us Google, the iPhone, YouTube and Mickey Mouse.
The flip side of “the immigrant paradox” is “the second-generation curse.” “(O)nly 30 percent of family-owned businesses make it through the second generation,” wrote the New York Times in 2016. “That data is from 1987, but experts say it still holds true today. It is known as the second-generation curse.” “Less than one third of family businesses survive the transition from first to second generation ownership,” wrote Forbes in 2013. “Another 50% don’t survive the transition from second to third generation.” If the children of immigrants tend to be over-achievers, the children of established businesses represent the other side of the coin.
Representative Ilhan Omar, a Somali refugee, in a recent piece in The New York Times, noted that “The ideals at the heart of our founding” are “equal protection under the law, pluralism, religious liberty.” “Having survived civil war in my home country as a child,” she wrote, “I cherish these values.” Should we not cherish those who cherish our values – even if they are poor?
When you think about the goals of American immigration policy, consider the information I included in this piece and then ask yourself if we really want to limit legal immigration to the well-off and comfortable. Who would you rather have coming to this country: somebody who feels entitled – or somebody who is grateful?
© 2019 by Mike Tully
READ / DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION HERE >>>
Mike contemplated the future Trump immigration policy in a column written back on August 31, 2016. You can read and download it by clicking here.
The Chosen One
A chosen one is a man whom God’s finger crushes against the wall.
– Jean-Paul Sartre
The Czar looked up at the sky, raised his arms, and proclaimed, “I am The Chosen One.” Cameras clicked, pens scratched on notepads, reporters tapped into their smart phones and the always patient Marine One waited in the background, providing a soundtrack of rumbling chaos that nearly drowned out the reporters’ shouted questions and the Czar’s shouted, stream-of-consciousness replies. The Czar was in his glory. After all, he is The Chosen One.
The Czar unspooled like a yo-yo. He was asked about Greenland, which the Danes rudely refused to consider selling to him. The Danish Prime Minister audaciously characterized his proposal as “absurd.” “Greenland is not for sale” she told reporters during a visit to an orphanage with Greenlandic Premier Kim Kielsen. She said she hoped the “absurd” proposal “is not meant seriously.” How dare she accuse the Czar of not being serious? That’s like accusing America of being unserious. “I thought the prime minister’s statement that it was an absurd idea was nasty,” bellowed the Czar. “All she had to do was say ‘No, we wouldn’t be interested.’” How dare the Prime Minister speak that way? Has she no respect for The Chosen One?
The Danes haven’t cornered the market on nastiness. Take Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who suggested the Czar’s trade war with China was hurting the economy. “Trade policy uncertainty seems to be playing a role in the global slowdown and in weak manufacturing and capital spending in the United States,” Powell told a trade conference recently. He added there were “no recent precedents to guide any policy response to the current situation.” Who appointed this guy anyway? “My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” asked the Czar in a furious tweet. Cross him and you’re compared to our primary foreign adversary. That’s what you get for criticizing The Chosen One.
Or voting against him, like American Jews. Nearly four out of five support Democrats, despite all the Czar has done for Israel. He gave them Jerusalem as their capitol. He gave them the Golan Heights. He Gave them Bibi Netanyahu. How can they not be grateful? They are disloyal. Don’t American Jews realize they are actually Israelis and Bibi is their leader? Isn’t that obvious? How can they ignore the words of the profound sage Wayne Allyn Root, who declared the Czar is “the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world.” “(T)he Jewish people love him like he is the King of Israel,” Root told television viewers. “They love him like he is the second coming of God.” Of course, they do. He is The Chosen One.
There are those who say the Czar is too close to Vladimir Putin and Russia. Some even suggest the Czar sides with Russia against American interests because Putin helped him get elected. Sure, the Czar and his team knew Russia was spreading pro-Czar and anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda on social media, underwriting rallies, creating rally signs and generating online petitions on the Czar’s behalf. And, yeah, the Russians hacked the email servers of the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Party officials. The Czar knew Russians worked in parallel with his campaign to help him and invited their help. Of course, they helped him; he is The Chosen One.
They watched a news conference when the Czar asked Russia to hack his opponent’s emails. A few hours later they did his bidding, breaking into email servers and funneling the stolen emails to Wikileaks. The treasonous Democrats, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and the fake news media tried to persuade the public it was improper for the Czar to accept Russian help in the election. They had the audacity to suggest that Donald, Jr. did something wrong with his “I love it!” meeting with Russians who offered dirt on Clinton. How dare they disparage the first born of The Chosen One?
The Czar declared a trade war against China because he is The Chosen One. That’s why Obama couldn’t do it, nor George W. Bush. They were not The Chosen One. They were inferior. Only the Czar knows that trade wars are easy to win, that China pays the tariffs, not Americans, and who needs Chinese products anyway? “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China,” tweeted the Czar, “including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” American companies, of course, will bow to his wishes and do whatever he tells them to do. After all, he is The Chosen One.
As I write this, the stock market is plummeting, foreign leaders are shaking their heads as the United States degenerates into a bumper-car concession, China is retaliating in the tariff war, the G-7 leaders are bracing for another fractious meeting – declaring before it starts that there will be no joint communique for the first time ever– and commentators are questioning the Czar’s sanity. Enter the search terms ” the chosen one mental illness ” into Google News and most results are about the Czar. James Fallows, writing in the Atlantic, refers to the Czar’s recent outbursts as “episodes of what would be called outright lunacy, if they occurred in any other setting.” “If a hospital had a senior surgeon behaving as Trump now does,” Fallows writes, “other doctors and nurses would be talking with administrators and lawyers before giving that surgeon the scalpel again.”
But nobody is taking the Czar’s scalpel away from him. How could they? He is The Chosen One.
© 2019 by Mike Tully
READ / DOWNLOAD A PDF VERSION HERE >>>