We Need Immigrants

Don't bash them all. Without them and the jobs they perform, we'd all be screwed.

Feb 18, 2025

Hey, y’all! I don’t like to get political and I respect everyone’s views. However, I feel the need to speak my mind on an issue that is tearing our nation apart.

Today, we need to talk about immigration. Sadly, xenophobia (fear of immigrants) has existed in the United States since its founding.1

Between 1863 and 1869, over 13,000 Chinese immigrants were laborers who built the western leg of the Transcontinental Railroad. These immigrants made up at least 80 to 90 percent of all Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) laborers involved in this particular endeavor.2

Despite their significant contribution to our nation, they were paid less than their white American counterparts. A Chinese worker was paid only $26.00 per month “without food, accommodation nor basic insurance”, whereas their white American counterparts received “$35.00 per month with food and accommodation”.3

Those Chinese workers who protested for better wages and working conditions were treated harshly by the railroad through such tactics as the cutoff of food and supplies to their camps.4

“It is estimated that over one thousand Chinese laborers died building the CPRR.”5

In 1886, the Chinese were targeted by America’s first significant immigration restrictions through the Chinese Exclusion Act, providing “an absolute 10-year ban on Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States.”6 Said act was in response to a perceived endangerment of “the good order of certain localities.”7

During the railroad’s construction, California Governor John Bigler characterized the Chinese as “thieves, outsiders to the United States, and an inferior race that disturbed the peace and tranquility of California.”8

The reaction to Chinese immigration during the 19th century sounds similar to that of modern-day America’s reaction toward immigrants coming from Mexico and Latin America.

As the Chinese immigrants of the 1860s were instrumental in building the crucial transportation link that united the east and west coasts of America, today’s immigrants from south of the border are instrumental in building and cleaning our houses and offices, picking crops in the field, processing our food (e.g., poultry plants), and various other jobs requiring manual or unskilled labor. These are NOT jobs that immigrants themselves are taking (or have ever taken) from citizens.

Employers, especially those in jobs requiring manual or unskilled labor, have always sought out and employed immigrants. Furthermore, too many employers here and in other industrialized nations have been known to exploit and abuse immigrant workers, putting profits over people.9 Immigrants, regardless of how they entered our country, are guaranteed basic human rights as per the U.S. Constitution, including due process, and it is incumbent upon our government and ourselves to ensure that they are treated as human beings.

As for crime, “in 1980. immigrants made up 6.2% of the U.S. population, and the total crime rate was 5,900 crimes per 100,000 people. By 2022, the share of immigrants had more than doubled, to 13.9%, while the total crime rate had dropped by 60.4%.”10

Cases such as the murder of University of Georgia student Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant do give many the perception that those who cross our border illegally are inherently menaces to our society, similar to the beliefs held about Chinese immigrants during the 19th Century.

While I mourn the murder of Ms. Riley and grieve for her family and friends, I am comforted by the fact that our justice system did its job by punishing her killer and assuring that he would serve the rest of his natural life in prison.11

Could her death have been prevented? Perhaps so if her killer’s prior run-ins with the law had resulted in a check of his immigration status. It is my hope that the Laken Riley Act will be used in a way that will assure that those few immigrants that do commit crimes, especially violent crimes, will be dealt with according to our laws. However, we should not live in a society where we’re paranoid regarding immigrants, legal or illegal.

With all that said, I do not advocate that our nation’s borders are just thrown open to allow anyone to come into our nation.

Our immigration laws should be duly, fairly, and equitably enforced. Those who have already entered illegally and have worked hard to make a better life for themselves and their families should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. If they have not committed any crimes, especially violent or property crimes, then they should be given some kind of probationary path to becoming legal U.S. residents.

As for the children of immigrants, regardless of when, where, and how their parents entered the country, Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”12 Neither the States nor the Federal government can contradict any part of the Constitution or the Constitution as a whole. It would take a constitutional amendment to modify how those born in the United States or its territories and possessions could be considered citizens.

Per Article V of the U.S. Constitution, “an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures” and “becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States).”13 Our founding fathers put this into place so that no one individual (e.g., President) or branch of government can arbitrarily modify OUR Constitution on a whim.

In the meantime, we must stop demonizing all immigrants regardless of how they got here.

To all our elected officials, federal, state, and local, I implore you to please be the adults in the room. If you truly care about our nation, then please work together with the American people toward a “win-win” solution that will balance justice and security with mercy and compassion toward all who live in the United States of America, including immigrants.

Last, but not least, most of us living here today are descendants of people from other parts of the world. A Native American could easily consider our ancestors “illegal”. Does that mean that those of us who are descendants of early colonists and the Africans who were brought to our country against their will should be deported? Even if we were deported, neither Europeans nor Africans would welcome us back. For that matter, those of Asian descent whose ancestors came to America centuries (or even decades) ago wouldn’t likely be welcomed back to Asia, either.

Case-in-point…

In 1822, Liberia in West Africa was created by the United States as a colony to resettle former slaves. Those settlers “did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered. Colonial settlements were raided by the Kru and Grebo from their inland chiefdoms.”14 In other words, just because the settlers were of African descent didn’t mean they’d be welcomed back by indigenous Africans.

The only exception I found is Ghana, who since 2019, has welcomed people of African descent to immigrate to their nation of their own free will.15 Otherwise, why should we expect the nations and continents our ancestors came from to welcome all of us back with open arms?

That is all I have for today. Be kind to one another, may God bless America and may God bless you and yours.

Until next time…

Peace Out, Y’all!

P.S. If you do leave a comment, please be respectful. It’s OK to disagree, but it’s not OK to be hateful toward anyone who disagrees with you.

Steve's Random Thoughts

Discussion about this post