Nation of Immigrants

We are a nation of immigrants who once prided ourselves on open borders. Read Robert Freer’s article below to see what changed?

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

At the base of the statue of liberty is inscribed:

"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-tost (sic) to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This is more than lip service to our shared experience. America has always been a nation of immigrants, and welcoming the millions answering freedoms beckoning torch has served us well. Besides serving as the arsenal of democracy in two world wars, it has made us the envy of the rest of the world at the productivity that is the result of our individual free labors. It has also given us a basis to say that we are the universal nation with peoples from all parts of the globe, all races, and religious beliefs living and working peacefully together to create this great land that continues to be in, Ronald Reagan’s words “…Like a shining city on a hill.” Now in this Post 9/11 world, there is a question as to whether we can continue to be the world’s refuge. Perhaps history has a lesson that might prove useful for us in facing up to the challenge from the barbarians of our age. Just like the city-state of Rome during the height of its ancient empire, the U.S. prides itself on multiculturalism and modernity. The Romans had a special status for its “guest workers” referred to as the peregrine, who represented a large but powerless component in Roman society While unlike Rome, we haven’t made it a capital crime for our undocumented immigrants to claim they are citizens, today, the threat of deportation for illegal immigrants remains almost as serious a sentence that can doom the immigrant to a life of poverty that affects him/her and a family on a distant shore dependent on the monthly stipends they send home.

Historically immigrants are among the hardest working and innovative people within our society. Usually with few resources beyond God’s natural gifts and determination, these industrious men and women strive and overcome all obstacles to get here and create their new life. The Romans eventually recognized the necessity of naturalizing its immigrants when they granted citizenry to all peregrini in 212 A.D. President Bush has proposed just that with his recent proposal that would recognize those who are here and provide a pathway to citizenship after three years.

Culturally, socially, and economically, the freedoms we share and which are sought by our “peregrini” shape the American dream and the history and principles that we celebrate every 4th of July. Although Americans take for granted the concept of open borders within the United States, this right rests upon notions from a pre 9/11 world. With hundreds of millions of people traveling freely between cities and states without ever being stopped by a border patrol and without a tradition of closely scrutinized national borders, we are prime for another serious incident.

Gradually, the United States has found itself in a quandary. Where once fundamental axioms pronounced closed borders amoral, we now find our highly regulated immigration process overwhelmed and the nation bursting with an ever-increasing sea of undocumented immigrants who seek to transform themselves through the freedoms and opportunities available to our citizens. Their illegal presence tests the very ability for us to manage our society. Whether it is schooling for their children, social and public health services, criminal justice, tax or social security, all parts of our civilization are stretched to the break point. Our lifeboat is sorely overloaded and threatens to sink us all. The image of an immigrant arriving in New York in the early twentieth century with virtually no money and knowing nobody but somehow succeeding is an indelible tale that shapes many Americans’ family histories. While it still can happen, the modern immigrant more likely arrives via makeshift raft or past the border guards in the desert or through a sewer tunnel from Tijuana, and inherently because of his illegal status, will never be able to manage his own livelihood in the same way.

About 10% of South Carolina’s population is Hispanic, and out of these nearly 400,000 people, 75% are here illegally. There needs to be a way to convert these hardworking immigrants from a criminal burden into beneficial asset for themselves as well as society. The current suggestion from the White House to allow illegal immigrants to apply for 3 year wok visas, followed by an opportunity to achieve legal residence or citizenship seems with one exception to be a viable plan for restoring regularity and effective enforcement to immigration. The one exception is the failure to come up with any suggestions that will effectively control our national borders.

Unfortunately, the moral high ground of open borders must be curbed by the post-9/11 modern reality. In the final 100 years of its empire, Rome’s expansive hard-to- manage borders led to constant infiltration by foreign hordes and the internal turmoil and war that eventually led to the fall of Rome. The sense of nationhood begins with the ability to effectively control our borders. Without strict control of our borders we can’t begin to effectively provide the opportunities that have characterized our country for all.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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