In his book, “The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations,” John McCain noted that two men attempting to become naturalized citizens died in combat for a country that still wasn’t theirs.
“I wish every American who, out of ignorance or worse, curses immigrants as criminals or a drain on the country’s resources or a threat to our ‘culture’… I would like them to know that immigrants, many of them having entered the country illegally, are making sacrifices for Americans that many Americans would not make for them.”
And Donald Trump, before he took office, made it clear he was going after more than criminals here illegally. He wanted everyone without legal status out. “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back.”
Americans follow their leaders, for better or worse. Trump claims he’s trying to protect the country from criminals who have come here illegally, and he should. But he’s turned Reagan’s uplifting exceptionalism and character into a hellscape of violent illegals who rape and murder with impunity, while the rest are simply antithetical to “real” American values.
Messages matter, and they have consequences when rage and hate show the ignorance McCain, a former U.S. senator and presidential candidate, spoke of.
Last week, this newspaper reported that Latino businesses face growing racial abuse by people who assume they’re here illegally because they look and in some cases sound different.
But the people being abused were born here and have every right to be here.
The anti-immigrant views of our leaders often trickle down, inflaming their followers with heated rhetoric. For example, Vice President J.D. Vance, a native of Middletown, recently claimed on a podcast that Democrats want unchecked immigration to bring in new voters to replace the ones already here. He also stated that it’s “totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with.”
It’s not what he said as much as how people, who want to confirm their biases, interpret his remarks. It’s not unreasonable to see these as dog whistles in which replacing voters nods to the Great Replacement Theory. Living next to someone who speaks the same language, as he also said, harkens to the days of segregation.
The hate, the anger and the racism have always lurked under the surface. And while it takes words to light the flame, the problem really isn’t with Trump and Vance.
It’s with the people who go up to a food truck and threaten to call ICE because if you’re selling tacos, you must be illegal.
We need strong borders. We need to get rid of criminals. We need an immigration policy that meets the needs of the country while welcoming those who come here legally.
We don’t need the ignorant or worse harassing American citizens. It’s among the most un-American actions anyone can take.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages each Sunday.
About the Author