Losing talent for no good reason

If one were to choose a single symbol to represent what America has meant, of what made America great, there is no question that the Statue of Liberty is that symbol. It is a grand work of art and engineering, but so much more. Lady Liberty radiates a confident welcome with the promise of freedom. She raises the torch of liberty aloft for all to see and follow. She displays her torch of liberty to all the seven seas and continents, represented by the rays from her crown. The tablet in her left arm bears the date of American Independence. What cannot be seen from below are that at her feet are chains and a broken shackle showing that she is free from oppression and servitude.

Within the pedestal on which Liberty stands is Emma Lazarus' famous poem "The New Colossus", which contains the lines so familiar to us... the words that, for generations of oppressed people around the world, represented a glorious hope for the future:

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!

A lesser-known part of that poem speaks the welcome even more clearly:

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome

"Mother of Exiles", welcoming the "wretched refuse"... the "huddled masses". What a welcome! It displays a confidence that immigrants, no matter how poor or oppressed, if given only a chance to survive and succeed, would become valuable citizens of our nation.

And... come they did... indeed poor and tired, by the thousands. They came, at extreme personal cost, not asking nor receiving a handout, but only the freedom to somehow earn their own way. They came, and by extremely hard work, frugality, and dogged determination, they succeeded, building the most prosperous nation in the process.

Those immigrants often lived and worked in miserable conditions... backbreaking work for very long hours, for barely enough pay to survive on. Their conditions were often neither safe nor pleasant, but they had a chance to succeed. They worked like slaves, but they were free. They were the muscle that made this nation into an industrial giant. Many were small-scale entrepreneurs... shop-owners, service workers, and contractors, building businesses like they built their personal lives, with gritty labor, hard bargaining, and wise trading. They hustled like hell.

If there has ever been a decisive lesson to be learned about making a nation strong, it is that lesson of America... welcome the immigrants and give them the opportunity to succeed. No matter where they come from... no matter how poor, no matter how uneducated, no matter how alien to our way of life... they have come here and improved our society.

It's a lesson we've almost lost. For a nation built by immigrants to turn around and become restrictive against future immigrants is an insult to our own ancestors. It is simply un-American. It is a lost opportunity for all of us.

Immigrants add to our economic strength. They come here with the values so many Americans have lost understanding and respect for. They come here, willing to work harder and longer, to live on less, to abide by our laws, learning our language and customs, asking only for the chance to do so.

How can we feel threatened by them? Who feels that we must restrict immigration, and why? What has changed to invalidate that great lesson?

We have... we've changed. Many current Americans have so lost the spirit that made our nation great that they want nothing more than to close up the borders and keep what we have for ourselves. They're willing to throw away future growth and prosperity in order to clutch fearfully at what they already have.

Our government has become more socialistic over the years, and socialism cannot handle a growing population, especially one growing through immigration. Socialism is based on redistributing wealth from those who have to those who don't, and immigrants almost always fall into the "those who don't" category. The socialistic government programs such as public schools and welfare programs have warped our nation into self-protecting stagnation. If we "give" it to ourselves, then "ourselves" has to be restricted.

There was a time when Americans were willing to compete with anyone, but we've become gutless, fearful of even the most disadvantaged of those who want to come here and work. Any American worker who fears competition from a poor, uneducated immigrant, who probably doesn't even speak English, is an American worker who is nothing more than a coward. Frankly, if I could choose between that worker and the immigrant he fears competing with, I would much rather have the immigrant here. I know the immigrant values liberty and opportunity... what does the fearful worker value? Not what I value, not what his ancestors valued, and not the values that made America great.

This commentary was spurred by news that Microsoft will open a software development office in Vancouver, Canada to retain talented workers who can't stay in the U.S. because of immigration laws. Jobs that were in the U.S. will move to Canada. Canada gains, America loses, for no good reason. Thank our government.