Make America Great: Return to Liberty and Humane Migration Reform

Guest blogger: Karl Uhlig, third-year law student, University of San Francisco

Many U.S. presidential candidates claim to make “America great”, yet forget our history of greatness was fueled mostly be our open immigration policy. As we strive to return to greatness, we refuse to recognize our greatness is our liberty. Most politicians rave about freedom, the power to act or think without hindrance, yet forget that liberty, to move and be free within society without restriction by any authority, includes at its core migration.
Liberty is best defined from the poem for lady liberty, “keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp… give me your tired, your poor… yearning to breathe free.” Back as the Statute of liberty was constructed, U.S. policy favored more immigrants to build a great nation. The purpose was to attract the industrious poor and hungry to work here, as labor was scarce and costly in a relativly egalitarian society, yet cheap in Europe with its slums with inegalitarian cities. This is the basis for democracy of the feet to leave traditional lands undervaluing labor and restricting opportunity for individual liberty to migrate to those lands with opportunities for the industrious. Currently, labor is costly, and the U.S. is pompously unwilling to yearn for liberty or democracy of the feet that we championed to rise from a bullied insignificant nation to a great nation. Now we lack egalitarian opportunity for labor with real wages and poverty levels stagnant and a contracting working middle class. Thus, we need to allow labor to make American great, as we once championed.

Currently, Senator Bernie Sanders recognizes the opportunity of embracing the American immigrant nation’s greatness, through industrious immigrants and liberty. The issue of immigration is less about “illegals” and more about “Fair and Humane” treatment of contributing members of our community. Interestingly, as a “socialist” his policy is aligned with economics, liberty and a means to make America great by giving opportunity to those fleeing persecution within failing states and yearning to breathe free and work hard for America. As the wall has failed to prevent influx of immigrants and merely wasted billions of taxes, these funds would be better spent rebuilding American infrastructure with immigrants.

Historically, many states of the Americas had policies (e.g., the Homestead Act) to grant free land and money to immigrants, as most states unduly restricted emigration, as modern immigration controls do now. Strangely, modern migration policy fails economically; building walls wastes funds without providing anything but xenophobic fear of growth. Meanwhile, immigration policy for capital and legal persons grants free land and money to set up cheap labor opportunities. While this provides some growth, the greatness of the U.S. is based on liberty of people to yearn for the best work and move to obtain that opportunity. As financial crises have shown, capital flees with profits from the community leaving labor behind, while immigrants currently fund social security without any ability to profit from that contribution once they leave.

Now it is time to favor our democratic ideal to yearn for liberty to work where opportunity beckons. American greatness requires immigration reform from sancturary cities to the national mother of immigrants. When we were great the St. Louis FED., noted we had 1 immigrant per native born, yet now we have only 5 per 1000 natives. Is it not time to return to greatness by changing our migration policy to favor growth with democratic mobile labor, instead of wasteful spending and xenophobic slants against our ancestors, who were all immigrants?

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