Nice (White) Countries

Which immigrants are welcome in the United States?

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Its words have served for more than a century as welcome for thousands of wide-eyed people with grand American dreams.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "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 to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The poem by Emma Lazarus and posted on the Statue of Liberty conveys an eloquent sentiment of welcome for immigrants entering the United States.

But who is welcome?

Are immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border as welcome as those crossing the Atlantic Ocean?

According to Donald Trump and those who agree with him, there is a hierarchy of immigrants and the dividing lines fall along color lines.

Photo Credit: Dennis Maliepaard

At a fundraiser for his presidential campaign, Trump played one of his most popular tunes for his base—immigration.

“These are people coming in from prisons and jails. They’re coming in from just unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster,”

In 2018, Trump made now-infamous remarks about immigration when he called Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries.”

At his fundraiser, he revisited and made light of those comments, and in doing so he said the quiet part out loud.

“And when I said, you know, Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries, I’m trying to be nice,” Mr. Trump said at the dinner, to chuckles from the crowd. “Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

He continued, “And you know, they took that as a very terrible comment, but I felt it was fine.”

Trump’s stance on immigration is not, fundamentally, about the movement of people from other nations to the United States.

Differing viewpoints on immigration are, at their core, questions about national identity.

Trump’s disparaging comments about immigration from majority Black and brown countries reveal the ongoing relevance of a basic question—Who is truly American?

Is the United States a nation of nations? Is it a land made stronger by its diversity of people? Or is a country that still believes itself to be by and for white people?

It’s always selective isn’t it?

The issue is not “immigration”, it is the immigration of certain people from certain places.

The issue isn’t “migrants” it is black and brown-skinned migrants. Europeans—white people—migrating to the U.S. (as Trump’s family did) are just fine.

We are still fighting for a more inclusive definition of who “belongs” in the US.

If we do not change our culturally-conditioned default definitions of who is “truly” American, then we will tacitly condone the white supremacist idea that people from Europe and those who are considered white are politically, socially, and morally superior to darker-skinned people from other nations.

We must contend with the fact that this land is stolen and the people who have the most rightful claim to it are the indigenous inhabitants.

We must face the truth that generations of people were stolen from their homelands in Africa and transported to the US only to have their labor and their freedom stolen as well.

We must become acquainted with the reality that, as flawed as this nation is, people around the world often still see the United States as more prosperous and preferable than their own countries.

And we ought to elect leaders who understand the gravity of guiding a nation that so many others look to as a place of possibility.

Immigration requires structure and policy choices crafted with empathy and foresight. Immigration does not and should not entail imposing a racial hierarchy on nations.

This should be a land that welcomes people based on whether they practice the ideals of democracy, civic responsibility, and liberty, not whether their skin is a certain shade or whether someone labels their country as “nice” or a “shithole.”

Trump’s believes that only certain immigrants to the United States should be celebrated. If people with these views have their way, then there won’t be much about this country worth celebrating at all.

Do you have an immigration story? Share in the comments below.