Our family tells a story that, in 1848, my great great grandfather Patrick stowed away on a boat from Ireland to the USA at the age of 14. This was during what we call the Irish Potato Famine but which the Irish called the Great Hunger. During this time, more than 10% of Irish people died and another 10% fled the country. My great great grandfather was one of those. At that time, there were few US regulations around immigration, and law allowed white people who immigrated to become citizens after five years of residence in the country. Our family story doesn’t reveal these details, but presumably Patrick became a citizen within about 5 years, around the age of 20. 

My other ancestors came from Ireland and Germany over the next 25 years and were subject to similar restrictions – or lack thereof – on their arrival and citizenship. They arrived, they endured the challenges common to most immigrants of modest or limited means, they found a place, they settled in. Many other ancestors of current Americans who immigrated here from Europe had a similar experience.

Now, some of their descendants want current immigrants to face something much different. Some favor dramatic, stringent regulations. Some say things like, “Our generosity has run out,” implying or even stating directly that immigration should be curtailed entirely. Of course, 2025 is not the first time such sentiments have been expressed here. The 1880s saw the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the face of increasing Chinese immigration and exploding anti-Chinese attitudes. The 1920s saw Americans placing additional restrictions on immigration, including quotas based on which groups were already present in the country. The 1940s saw us at war with Nazi Germany and much of the subsequent liberalization was the result of a national revulsion at how some of our own national practices and policies resembled – had even served as models for – those of Germany. The 1950s and 60s saw the easing of immigration restrictions alongside the advances of the civil rights movement. But fearful and xenophobic attitudes never die away entirely – they are always lying below the surface, ready for a crisis to feed them and demagogues to exploit them. And to be clear, although the Trump administration has implemented some uniquely and intentionally cruel policies, every modern president from both parties has engaged in harmful and excessive deportations. 

And so we find ourselves today in a country where a substantial number of Americans want to limit or eliminate immigration, make citizenship much more difficult to obtain, or in extreme cases even strip citizenship from people. And a sizable number of those people are only here because of the lenient immigration policies in place when their ancestors arrived. No one in that situation should be able to say, “My ancestors did it the ‘right way’ – these people should too!” The right way? What is the right way? 

The story of past immigrants – seeking opportunity, running from danger, leaving perilous situations, wanting to support their families – is the story of today’s immigrants. Those who try to argue that people are coming for different reasons now, for nefarious reasons, are obtuse (by accident or choice) about both historical fact and modern sociology. We are people. We are human beings, making the same choices we have always made. And if we cannot deliver at the minimum the level of treatment our own ancestors were given, that is reflective of our own moral failure rather than the deficits of those immigrating here today. 

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