The Boston Globe is still fearmongering over President Donald Trump’s policy ideas on immigration with another in a series of articles designed to create fear among the nation’s immigrants.
The paper writes of immigrants who claim they fear their neighbors or fear leaving their homes because of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“The paralyzing dread of deportation that [immigrants feel],” the paper wrote in its November 25 edition, “is multiplied by the thousands here in York—a community that, because of its regional immigration court, is one of the largest hubs of detentions and deportations in Pennsylvania. That same apprehension is multiplied by the millions around the country.”
At issue is the change President Trump made to Barack Obama’s overly lenient deportation policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Despite claims by liberal activists, Trump’s goal is not “mass deportation,” but his policy does once again recognize that being in the country illegally is still a crime. This is unlike Obama’s policy which only maintained that illegal immigrants caught in other lawlessness were to be deported.
“Remember, everybody who is here illegally is subject to removal at any time,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at the press briefing in February where he explained the president’s policies. “The president wanted to take the shackles off individuals in these agencies and say: ‘You have a mission. There are laws that need to be followed. You should do your mission and follow the law.'”
President Obama, though, tied the hands of his agencies demanding that they free most illegal immigrants. Deportations fell to the lowest rate in decades under Obama.
Still, according to the Boston Globe, Trump’s policies—which are really just reinstatements of traditional policies—make it hard for illegal immigrants to “plan for a future.”
The paper goes on to insist, “after all, when that future can at any moment take the form of an immigration agent at your doorstep.”
One illegal immigrant went on to conflate illegal immigration with some sort of human right, saying, “We all fit in everywhere. We’re all humans. We all have the same rights. Nobody would feel superior to others. Now everything has changed.”
But even in the Globe’s piece, a representative for ICE noted that the Trump administration is not sponsoring “indiscriminate” sweeps.
“ICE does not conduct sweeps, checkpoints, or raids that target aliens indiscriminately,” said ICE spokesman Khaalid Walls.
“ICE does not discuss specific tactics. All enforcement activities are conducted with the same level of professionalism and respect that ICE officers exhibit every day,” Walls added.
ICE policy is said to target only those illegal immigrants who have had some sort of entanglement with the law, whether it be drunk driving or more serious criminal behavior such as drug abuse or sales, rape, and even murder.
Liberals often maintain that the phrases written by Emma Lazarus added to the Statue of Liberty in 1903, 17 years after the statue was dedicated, is an American “first principle.” The words, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” are cited over and over again as if the prevailing opinion of the founders was to initiate open borders.
But, those who created our country and its founding ideas insisted that a controlled immigration policy was best for America. The founders wanted immigrants who would assimilate and accept the American way of life.
The father of the Constitution, James Madison, for instance, once said, “It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us, and throw their fortunes into a common lot with ours.”
In a letter to John Adams, George Washington was even more to the point by saying immigrants should embrace our way of life so that, “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”
Alexander Hamilton agreed, saying, “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.”
Hamilton also said, “the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.”
The founders wanted immigrants, of course. They agreed that immigration was crucial to the growth of the nation. But they did not want the dregs of the world. They did not want the “masses,” but the best of what the rest of the world had to offer. The founders wanted those special people who wanted to live the American ideal. Accept our ways. To become Americans.
That is what Trump’s voters elected him to reinstate in federal immigration policy. So far, he is fulfilling that mandate.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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