The crisis there is very real but the U.S. government is handling wrong. Worse, the Republican Party seems hell-bent on making these people into a menace. They are not! Trump demonized them by saying they were all drug smugglers and the like. Also not true.

Our country is a country of immigrants with one exception, the Native Americans who are, sadly, few in number today. My own family arrived in America in its earliest of days, 1638, flees Englands policy of imprisoning Puritans and sometimes putting them to death because they disagreed with the Church of England. They fled persecution.

As the decades passed, many other new Americans came here for the same reason. Three waves of Irish came here because of famine, harsh living conditions under the thumb of land owners.

Then the Chinese came to the West Coast of America and helped build the railroads and do other jobs that Americans thought below them. That was until the Chinese Exclusion Act, thoroughly racist in design, was passed in 1862.

Otherwise, our borders were wide open. Starting in the 1890s and continuing until 1923, almost everyone from a foreign country who arrived here was welcomed. Most were southern Europeans although some were German immigrants and Jewish immigrants. The Germans were fleeing forced military service, worsening economics, and other factors. Many of these Germans were skilled laborers who helped our economy.

Then, starting around 1900, Italians, Poles, Syrians, Armenians and other groups came to America to escape both economic failures, government repression, ie. the Ottoman Empire and the Russian occupation of Poland. They too were welcomed with open arms. The only requirements for these people is that they arrive disease free, have $50 and an address to go to. Most did not have the $50 and many used addresses given to them by friends even though most would never go to that address. And during this era there was an explosion of American industry due to these people taking wages that long time Americans were unwilling to take. They filled mostly jobs in the various types of mills in the Northeast and the mid-west mills.

It was not until the Immigration Act of 1924 limits the number of immigrants allowed into the United States yearly through nationality quotas. Under the new quota system, the United States issues immigration visas to 2 percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States at the 1890 census. The law favors immigration from Northern and Western European countries. Just three countries, Great Britain, Ireland and Germany account for 70 percent of all available visas. Immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe was limited. (https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/immigration-united-states-timeline#new-restrictions-at-start-of-wwi). The reason the 1890 census was chosen is because it did not reflect the great immigration from 1890 to 1920.

For some reason, America has long been Xenophobic. It does not seem to matter that previous generations of immigrants have always found a productive place in American and have contributed greatly to our economy.

And so, today we have this crisis at the southern border. Xenophobia is at a height never seen before. The vast majority of people arriving at our border are fleeing various types of repression, personal attacks, forced labor, etc. This is a humanitarian crisis to which we must respond in a positive manner. Before us stand the future of American labor, and not to belabor a point, this has always and without exception, been an extremely positive thing for our country and our economy. Yes, there are a springling of coyotes, drug smugglers and other undesirables among the group, but they can be ferreted out and put in jails in Mexico.

The U.S. would do well to make an agreement with the Mexican government to build housing on Mexican soil for these immigrants. It would be costly, but far more humane than what exists today. Republican truly need to read the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” written by Emma Lazarus. Are we now too arrogant, too unsympathetic, too xenophobic to remember those words, the people arrived at Ellis Island, that we now think to turn our backs on those words is somehow all right?

Let them in via making at least 100 more immigration judges, faster processing and, of course, weeding out the undesirables. In the end, decades from now, we will be reaping the benefits of such immigration.