The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
In 1883 Emma Lazarus wrote a poem about the Statue of Liberty. The huge statue was created in France, and was given to the still-relatively young nation of the United States of America by the French nation. It was a magnificent monument to the single state among all other of Earth’s states that was then and still is the quintessential nation of immigrants. Lady Liberty is one of the most widely-known landmarks in any nation, particularly to the millions of immigrants over the past four centuries who immigrated to the USA.
The title of Emma Lazarus’s poem was The New Colossus. She wrote it as part of a major fund-raising drive to build a huge pedestal for the statue. A large plaque is affixed to the inside of the pedestal, and the most famous section of the poem is the final words:
…Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
From 1790 to 1820, the population of the US increased by about 225%, from 3,930,000 to 9,640,000. Most of that expanded number of immigrants came from Great Britain and Germany. From 1820 to 1860, we increased by 300%, from 9,640,000 to 31,440,000. A heavy majority of those immigrants were from Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere in Western Europe. From 1860 to 1900, we again grew by roughly 225%, from 31,440,000 to 76,000,000, but those immigrants were mainly from southern, northern, and eastern Europe, not from Britain or Western Europe.
Twentieth century immigration was determined largely by what was going on in the rest of the world. Where life was calm, most people stayed put. Where it wasn’t, many of them answered Lady Liberty’s alluring beckon. From 1900 to 1940, our population grew by its lowest percentage from its inception during all 40-year periods up to that time: 175%: 76,000,000 to 131,670,000. For the first time, significant numbers of immigrants were from Latin America. From 1940 to 1980, we increased from 131,670,000 to 226,000,000, under 100%, and many of those newcomers were from places where the US had been engaged in warfare: Germany, Italy, other parts of Eastern and Western Europe, Southern Asia, Korea, China, and Japan. Also, higher numbers of Latinos were coming to the US from the south during those years.
During the last forty years, we grew from 226 million to 335 million people. From 1980 to the present, large numbers of immigrants came from other places in which the US had been overtly or covertly involved in wars: the Middle East, including Israel, Lebanon, and Syria; Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the Balkans. As a result, some citizens from those nations applied to and were accepted as political refugees seeking asylum. Tens of thousands of refugees from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Honduras are now also applying for political asylum. Furthermore, it is evident to everyone who reads or watches the news that even more thousands of poor Latinos are at our borders trying to enter, either legally or illegally. The American Dream still beckons to hundreds of millions of the Earth’s inhabitants.
However, it would be a mistake to assume that America’s constant population growth was due solely to immigrants moving here. Native-born Americans propagated their own offspring, thereby adding to the total numbers as well. As the song says, “Both native-born and foreign-born have made the country great.”
Obviously it is impossible for the US to give green cards to everyone who wants one. It is also obvious that the US needs more many millions of workers than we now have if we are to thrive. As our population continues to age faster than we produce native-born replacement workers, we will not have enough American-born workers to keep the economy growing at an acceptable rate. Able, educated immigrants are a key factor in guaranteeing a prosperous future.
Covid-19 considerably slowed the entrance of all immigrants. Fearing a spread of the pandemic, Title 42 was an intentional federal measure to diminish the influx. President Trump and the Republicans tightly clamped down on the number of outsiders who were allowed to enter the country. President Biden tried to get Title 42 rescinded, but he could not secure congressional approval.
Last week Title 42 ended. Border officials had anticipated a huge flow of Latinos wanting to enter the US through our southern border, but surprisingly, it did not materialize. Nonetheless, almost certainly there will be more people coming from Latin America than ever before. Anyone who was willing to walk from Venezuela all the way to Texas (and there were many thousands of them), believed the invisible force pulling them northward was their last chance at a new life in a new land.
There are two hundred separate nations throughout the world. The United States is the only country in the world which has citizens who came from almost every one of them.
English-speaking immigrants have always had an easier time becoming citizens than those who spoke other languages. However, it usually took only one generation for the newcomers to assimilate into the general population. Immigrant children quickly learned to speak English in school, and they taught their parents and grandparents the new language. Ethnic neighborhoods have always lasted for two or three decades, but by then the new citizens tended to move to other parts of the cities and suburbs, and America became more homogenized. That has always been the pattern.
The demand for millions of new workers will become the main mechanism for overcoming the current internal resistance to immigration. The irony of anti-immigration fervor is that everyone who came into the New World had their origins in the Old World. The first people who came to the Americas fifteen thousand years ago crossed the land bridge which then existed between Siberia and Alaska. Why is there any antipathy to outsiders when all of us are ultimately outsiders?
The federal government at present does not have nearly enough Immigration and Naturalization Service agents to process the numbers of people who are waiting to enter the USA. It is inhumane to keep desperate people waiting indefinitely in flimsy and overcrowded facilities.
For the sake of a prosperous American future, we must make good on the promise that Lady Liberty makes to the homeless, tempest-tossed men, women, and children who gaze across the walls, the razor-wire, and the barriers to the golden door of opportunity which they believe awaits them.
– May 14, 2023
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.