The Great Trump-Fecta: Do not engage the xenophobes, for history proves them wrong

What’s dominating today’s politics? A billionaire, a border and the upcoming ballot.

Donald Trump is a presidential candidate — let that thought sink in. Already, Trump has made his mark on the race, by denouncing an entire Mexican immigrant population in that belligerent manner that has come to mark his candidacy. It would be a futile mission to address all of Trump’s ill-conceived sayings, so we have decided to address one that has resonated strongly with us here at The Pitt News — immigration, and the immigrant’s place in this country and its politics.  

Do not engage the xenophobes, for history proves them wrong

My dad knows how to elicit a response from me better than anyone.

Often, as my family chats over dinner, I make an offhand comment about a class I’m taking that just happens to delve into ideological territory. In response, my dad brings up his right wing opinion on Obama or immigrants or taxes, and my chewing will quicken to ready my tongue for a fight.

But just as I’m about to throw myself into righteous indignation, my mom looks at me and says, “Remember, do not engage.”

When facing the hairbrained presidential campaign of Donald “The Billionaire” Trump, I invite voters to adopt the same soothing sentiment — whatever you do, “do not engage.”

This cretin of casinos started his presidential campaign off with some statements on immigration that ruffled many hair pieces, and for good reason. He publicly stated that Mexican immigrants are “bringing drugs … bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

As a history nerd, I’ve always found comments like these patently ridiculous. If U.S. history has proven anything about immigration, it is that such nativist instincts are very common. A recent Pew Research Centerstudy found 63 percent of Republicans saw immigrants as more burdensome than helpful to the country.

But history has also proven this belief very wrong.

Just as immigrants have always assimilated into American culture and given us some of our great American cornerstones — hamburgers, created by a German immigrant, “God Bless America,” written by a Russian immigrant and football, based on an English game — the current generation will be productive and energetic members of society.

To list off the stories of first or second generation immigrants who have found success in the U.S. would be an exercise in redundancy, but names like Andrew Carnegie, Sonia Sotomayor, Joe DiMaggio or Arianna Huffington come to mind as people who found success and contributed positively to their new home.

But still history reminds me that the white privilege I take for granted would not exist in any earlier era. As the times change, so does who our country decides to hate.

Reading Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” earlier this summer, I learned the story of Al Smith, a 1928 presidential candidate whose campaign trail was lit by burning crosses. Smith was an Irish Catholic and third generation immigrant, which at the time, meant he was no good.

I was raised a Catholic, and I am a mutt of Italian, German, Polish, Irish and Hungarian ancestry. While in today’s culture I am just looked at as another white male, I know from Smith’s story that some of that ancestry would mark me as a second-class citizen, unworthy of any sort of prominence in our country.

So, it makes me happy to see candidates replying to Trump’s comments on immigrants with candor. Some, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, have pegged the comments for what they are — ugly and untrue.

But even this gave Trump undeserved attention.

According to FiveThirtyEight, noted data journalist Nate Silver’s website, Trump surpasses all others in media coverage and public interest — even as oddsmakers like those at Betfair, the world’s largest Internet betting exchange, find the idea of him winning the election preposterous.

While he has plenty of name recognition — easy to obtain when you slap your name on everything you own — most voters view him negatively. Subtracting the percentage who hold this most egotistical candidate in a negative light from those who hold them in a positive light yields a result of -32 percentage points.

This means more people dislike than like him, or even have a neutral opinion. Not a good start to an election campaign.

But other candidates, like Ted Cruz and Pitt alumnus Rick Santorum, insisted Trump brought up an important issue by focusing on the negatives of immigration. They simply didn’t like his “verbiage” — i.e., they agree with the awful sentiment but just wish he weren’t so blunt.

Worryingly, some Republicans seem to share this sentiment.

That same Pew study as before showed that while 72 percent of Americans think illegal immigrants can stay in the U.S. if they meet certain requirements, only 52 percent of Republicans agreed with the statement. Plus, 59 percent of Republicans believe their party “hasn’t done a good job” on immigration, while 58 percent think a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants would be rewarding bad behavior.

While it’s true that many current immigrants came to the U.S. legally, how does that change their situation? Realistically, the U.S. was built on illegal immigration. But, as my goal is to never sound like a Che Guevara shirt-wearing liberal, there are more interesting points to examine if your caveat is simply illegal immigration.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Americans encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries, and rarely questioned that policy until the late 1800s.” Immigrants weren’t required to carry any passports or visas.The U.S. government only implemented screening to prevent those with infectious diseases from entering.

In fact, our European ancestors may have immigrated legally, but it was to a much lower standard. Records of names were self-reported by the private ships who brought immigrants over by handing over lists of all aboard. And while there may not have been the myriad benefits we have today, by 1918, any arrivals were still guaranteed a free education.

Since the government placed a tax on every immigrant who entered the country, economics tells us it would have been in a company’s best interest to sneak some in on the side.

Now, if one wishes to immigrate, they must obtain a green card — which requires months of dealing with bureaucracy and fees to obtain. If my ancestors had to deal with such nonsense, I’m hard-pressed to believe they wouldn’t have found easier — read, illegal — paths to start a new life in the “land of opportunity.”

Anti-immigration conclusions are simply a nasty outgrowth of people’s resistance to change. From the Know-Nothings to the KKK to the John Birch Society, xenophobia has been a baton passed down from political generation to generation for easy political capital. But you’ll also notice that none of those groups have stuck.

So if you are using it as your political trump card, you best beware.

Besides, when we look at the actual numbers, Trump, the epitome of a troll, is dead wrong to claim that immigrants are more criminally inclined. According to the Washington Post, first generation immigrants are less likely to be involved in crime than those native to the U.S. If anything, assimilation means more crime — second generation immigrants have a rate roughly equal to those who are native born.

And besides, immigration isn’t going away. Alienating new arrivals with overtures that we don’t want them is more likely to instigate the situation xenophobes don’t want — immigrants who create pockets of their own culture and never assimilate.

So, for the good of the whole country, “do not engage,” and don’t feed the trolls on immigration.

Stephen Caruso is a columnist who writes on social and economic issues for The Pitt News. He is also the Layout Editor.

Write to Stephen at stephencaruso23@gmail.com.

Editor’s note: This column is part of a complementary series on the role of immigration in politics. For the corresponding component, see “The Great Trump-Fecta: Immigrants can’t pop the nativist bubble.”