Trump’s anti-immigrant stance is deeply anti-American

After a rather peaceful respite from Donald Trump’s hate-filled “rallies,” our former president is back on the campaign trail again, spewing his vile, anti-immigrant rhetoric and riling up the masses of Republican voters.

Over the past few weeks, Trump has not only taken a page directly out of Adolf Hitler’s fascist “Mein Kampf” manifesto when he said immigrants coming across our southern border are “poisoning the blood” of America, but also doubled down, saying this week during a rally in Iowa that undocumented immigrants are “destroying the blood of our country” and “destroying the fabric of our country.”

For those unaware, Hitler also loved to talk about how immigrants and the mixing of races was “blood poisoning” in Nazi Germany.

Of course, we all know (or should know by now) that Trump is an extremist who thrives on dividing people and turning Republican voters against not only immigrants but also their Democratic-minded neighbors. What is even more concerning that Trump’s tired anti-immigrant rhetoric this time around, however, is how many Americans have seemingly missed this type of hateful speech. In a recent poll, 42% of GOP caucus-goers in Iowa said Trump’s “poisoning the blood” speech made them more likely to support him in the 2024 presidential election.

If that makes you want to scream and pull your hair out, please know you are not alone. But since screaming and hair-pulling doesn’t do much to prevent our beloved democracy from turning into a country ruled by an immigrant-hating tyrant (who, ironically is not only the son of an immigrant but also has fathered four children born to immigrant mothers), we will take a more positive path and point out the massive benefits our country receives from the people who make the painful choice of leaving behind everything they’ve ever known in search of a better, safer future for themselves and their families.

After all, unless we belong to the 2.6% of Americans who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native or the roughly 10% of Americans descended from Africans forcibly brought to this country as slaves, we should all be able to identify with the immigrant spirit.

As John F. Kennedy — the grandson of Irish immigrants — pointed out in his 1958 book, “A Nation of Immigrants,” every American “who has ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants.”

Kennedy added: “Little is more extraordinary than the decision to migrate, little more extraordinary than the accumulation of emotions and thoughts which finally leads a family to say farewell to a community where it has lived for centuries to abandon old ties and familiar landmarks, and to sail across dark seas to a strange land. …. The forces that moved our forebears to their great decision — the decision to leave their homes and begin an adventure filled with incalculable uncertainty, risk and hardship — must have been of overpowering proportions.”

Today, immigrants flock to our nation in search of many of the same things most of our own ancestors were seeking — safety from religious or political persecution, refuge from violence and crushing poverty and the dream of living a safer, more prosperous life. And we can’t forget those who are also fleeing a new threat: environmental destruction caused by climate change. One recent study predicted that the U.S. can expect to see more than 30 million migrants fleeing extreme climate scenarios in Central America over the next three decades.

“Every day vulnerable people are forcibly displaced due to impacts generated by climate change. This isn’t something that will happen, this is something happening now,” the nonprofit organization Climate Refugees recently pointed out. “Numerous studies, like The World Bank, forecast a grim picture of internal displacement in the millions, as the adverse effects of climate change induce more extreme weather, rising sea levels, threaten food security and impact livelihoods.”

Regardless of why people migrate to our country, there is no doubt the United States would be a dramatically different nation without the economic and cultural contributions of its immigrants.

Are your children waiting this week to hear Santa Claus and his reindeers? You can thank Dutch immigrants for bringing that tradition to the U.S. Have you ever bought something from Levi Strauss, Nordstrom, Procter & Gamble, Kraft or Anheuser Busch? All of those companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. In fact, studies have consistently shown immigrants are twice as likely to become entrepreneurs than native-born Americans.

Immigrants also are the backbone of many industries we rely on for our very survival — according to the Department of Agriculture, nearly 75% of America’s agricultural workers, including those who help grow and harvest our produce, were not born in the U.S. Immigrants also account for nearly one-fourth of the folks who work in our restaurants, grocery stores and food processing plants. If we were to severely restrict immigration — as Trump and his friends have suggested — it is almost a given that our food prices would skyrocket.

And when we get sick, immigrants are there to take care of us. According to a 2020 report by the New American Economy Research Fund, immigrants make up more than 16% of all healthcare workers in the U.S. — and account for nearly 30% of our physicians and surgeons.

At a time when the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts our nation will have a shortage of more than 320,000 nurses and doctors within the next decade, do we really want to elect leaders whose anti-immigrant policies will just worsen this already dire situation?

This holiday season, as many Camas-Washougal Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus — whose parents may be the most famous refugees in history — let’s remember the point of the Christmas Eve story and commit to opening our hearts to — and advocating for — refugees and immigrants who contribute so much to this melting pot we call America.