The Human Cost of the Current United States Immigration Policy

My Rothstein family, 1916, a generation after escaping Tsarist Russia to find refuge in the United States

My mother was born in Odessa, Ukraine, which then also was part of Tsarist Russia. When she was one year old, her family immigrated to the United States. Her mother and father became naturalized American citizens. She had five brothers and a sister, all born in the U.S. But because my mother was not born in the U.S. and was never naturalized, she lived her life as an illegal immigrant.

Neither my mother nor her family likely ever realized her illegal status. She was as American as one could be, knowing really nothing of Ukraine or the language. But if she were alive today, masked ICE agents reading this and needing to meet Trump’s quota of 3,000 arrests a day would likely come calling to take her who knows where.

Real Lives Impacted by the Current United States Immigration Policy

Far fetched?

Not if you’ve been keeping up with ICE’s arrests. Like Moises Sotelo, a man who lived in Yamhill County, Oregon for 31 years, built an award-winning vineyard management company, a pillar of his church, arrested, spent five weeks in detention and was deported to Mexico.

Or Luis Leon, 82, of Allentown, PA, and holder of a valid, seemingly deportation-proof green card, 40 years resident in the U.S., disappeared by ICE with no notice to his family who later was erroneously told Leon was dead, only for him to turn up in a hospital in Guatemala, a country he had no ties to.

And then there are the “dreamers,” who, like my mother, were brought to the U.S. as children, millions of them, now fearfully watching others in once-protected status—Haitians, Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, even Afghans who risked their lives for U.S. troops during the war, caught in legal purgatory, all vulnerable to deportation. The Supreme Court has given Trump the right to send them to countries that, like Luis Leon, have no relationship to their backgrounds.

Why the Current United States Immigration Policy Fails Us All

There are rational ways to control our borders to keep out undesirables and mitigate the social burdens immigrant entry might cause. In fact, such a rational plan was developed on a bipartisan basis last year and appeared headed for approval by Congress before Trump derailed it so that immigration would remain a hot button campaign issue for him.

In addition to the human toll of Trump’s sweeping arrests, concentration camps and reckless deportations, the data makes a clear case that these mass deportations will be economically harmful to the U.S., according to Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman.

Krugman’s analysis shows that immigration has led to faster U.S. economic growth in recent years by filling voids in essential employment areas, and fiscally because of the taxes immigrants pay. Social Security and Medicare have been more secure because undocumented immigrants pay into into both programs but are ineligible to collect from them. Krugman forecasts that Trump’s mass deportations will cause inflation to rise and economic growth to slow.

In other words, in both humane and economic areas, Trump’s immigration policy is lose-lose folly.

Immigrants Built This Country—And Continue to Shape It

My father’s family fled from Latvia, then part of Tsarist Russia, as was Ukraine. If the Rothsteins had remained, their lives would have been in danger, merely because they were Jewish. If they had not died at the hands of the Tsar’s army, they certainly would have decades later at Hitler’s.

America’s been a refuge for Vietnamese boat people, the Irish fleeing famine, others threatened by war, gangs, religious persecution, dictators like Castro and Mao. And we’ve been a beacon attracting those with ambition and seeking opportunity not otherwise available.

Of the 300 million+ people now living in the U.S., the only ones who technically are not those with immigrant backgrounds are the continent’s indigenous people and the slaves brought here against their will. Because of that history, the U.S. has generally, but not always, welcomed immigrants and given them physical protection, freedom, and time to use that opportunity to build productive lives.

The result has paid extraordinary dividends for all segments of U.S. life.

In dedicating The Latina President, my first novel, I paid tribute to our immigrant past:

“All four of my grandparents fled from the lands of their birth and the authoritarian tyranny that almost certainly would have claimed their lives had they remained. They fled to the United States of America, a nation that promised to be their refuge. Because they immigrated, my family and I have had the great fortune to live the promise that brought my grandparents to these shores. In one form or another, my family’s story is shared by almost everyone I now know or have ever met. To our immigrant past, and, hopefully, its future, this book is dedicated.”

According to recent polls, taken after Americans have been made aware of the carnage Trump’s immigration policy is causing, most agree. It’s time to turn that agreement into rational public policy.

Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net

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