Immigration: History tells us Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ is not the answer

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On August 10, 1988, Ronald Reagan proclaimed, “America stands unique in the world: the only country not founded on race but on a way, an ideal. Not in spite of but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. That is the American way.”

He made this observation at the signing ceremony for the bill offering restitution for wartime internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He acknowledged that internment was a “grave wrong” and reminded the nation that immigration is the United States’ great strength and that persecuting others based solely on their origin is fundamentally un-American.

Yet 36 years later, Reagan’s message is lost on even his own party leaders. The Republican platform calls for the “largest deportation effort in American history.”

Dan Fountain

While the circumstances and populations are different, the horrific images from Japanese internment might look similar to what we’d see during a proposed mass deportation. Law enforcement or military members might go house to house searching for those without legal authorization to be in the United States.

Families could be separated, as many undocumented immigrants are married to or have children who are citizens. Imagine the heart-wrenching scenes of separation at family homes or at schools as undocumented children are pulled from classrooms.

The government could confiscate billions in property as undocumented people are forced to abandon belongings, just as Japanese-Americans were similarly dispossessed in the 1940s. Ultimately, millions of undocumented people living and working among us could be relocated to facilities to await deportation.

Approximately 150,000 people of Japanese ancestry were sent to internment camps, but today’s mass deportation advocates are seeking to deport over 11 million people. That is a task greater than arresting, detaining and deporting the entire population of North Carolina.

The spectacle of mass deportation will not simply be a local affair. Americans will provide the world with images of overwhelmingly non-white people locked behind bars or razor wire because we refuse to recognize their very real contributions to our society and fear their differences.

During the Cold War, white Americans’ racist attitudes proved fertile ground for the Soviets to exploit to try to win the hearts and minds of the world. Chinese President Xi would likely smile contemplating the self-induced wound the U.S. would cause by deporting millions of productive immigrants that former President Donald Trump said were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

No serious person dismisses the need for sensible immigration policy. Terrorism, human trafficking and international drug smuggling provide ample reason to regularize and fully know who is entering our country. However, mass deportation is not the answer.

The data clearly show that all immigrants, legal and undocumented, are less likely to commit crimes in our country than native-born residents. Using a broad brush to paint them otherwise is reckless and prejudicial.

Rather than revert to xenophobic practices of the past, our elected leaders need to find ways to balance past illegal entry to the country with accumulated years of residence to bring longstanding, law-abiding undocumented residents out of the shadows and into legal standing with straightforward pathways to citizenship. They must also design guest worker policies that bring balance to our labor needs, include all employees in the tax base, guarantee adequate safety conditions for all workers, and set wage standards that protect native and resident worker incomes.

The vast majority of undocumented people who risk their lives to come here simply seek to work and contribute to American society. These are the kinds of people who have been the lifeblood of our country – risk-takers hungry for opportunity. If they demonstrate a commitment to our society and its laws, we ought to find ways to welcome them. As Ronald Reagan said: “That is the American Way.”

Daniel Fountain is a Professor of History at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.

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