The Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Shore

There are two major reasons why we accept immigrants.

One is purely selfish: some immigrants have skills or money to bring which will make America better. These potential immigrants can presumably be identified. It shouldn’t matter where they’re from or what their race or religion is so long as they are bringing something of value. We have various programs like H1B for people with skills we need and EB-5 for people with money. They need examination and I think we should actively be recruiting those with skills; but there is no crisis here.

The second reason is much more important to America and the world. There are people who need refuge and we are able to grant it to some of them.

“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.”

That’s what it says on the plaque on the Statue of Liberty. That describes most of my ancestors when they came two generations ago. Yes, the places they left were shitholes, at least for them. That doesn’t make them shit, just wretched refuse yearning to breathe free.

My grandparents were fleeing pogroms in Russia and the Ukraine. They contributed to their new country and I hope we who were lucky to be born here have contributed as well. But there was no way to know what they or their progeny would add when they came. They wouldn’t have qualified for H1B or been able to pay half a million dollars for an EB-5 visa.

At least partially because of prejudice, America refused most Jewish refugees from the Nazis even as it became apparent what would happen to them in Nazi-occupied Europe. As a Jew, I don’t want to see us turn back Moslems fleeing catastrophe.

There are so many refugees that the US can’t possibly take them all. Unfortunately, there are so many refugees from conflict that we must prioritize them over people who “just” want to be free or “just” what a chance to make a better living. In a world plagued by terror we have to vet refugees as best we can rather than let them teem into Ellis Island the way my ancestors did. We do have a right to insist that refugees adapt to our country and follow our laws. But we have a responsibility to provide refuge.

America is no longer great if we cannot lift our lamp beside the golden door.