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Mark Nuckols, townhall.com
Why We Need Much Tougher Immigration Policies: Some Sad
Lessons from Brighton Beach
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" is perhaps a noble
sentiment. As immigration policy for the 21st century, it is barking mad
nonsense. There should be only one litmus test for permitting immigration
into the United States. Does it benefit the U.S. and our own citizens?
Imagine inviting someone into your home, who eats your food, then surreptitiously steals your silverware. And who then tells all his relatives
what a schmuck you are, and that they should also come running to take
full advantage of your naive generosity. Well, that is more or less the tawdry story of much of Russian immigration to the United States for the last
four decades.
Immigration from Russia has not received much attention compared to the
much larger flow of immigrants from South of the Rio Grande, but that
can tell us much about the dangers of liberal immigration policies and a
poorly policed border.
Americans often have romantic and naive ideas about what people in other
countries think of the U.S. In the old melting pot narrative, the most courageous and enterprising folk in the village pick up their belongings, make
the long sea voyage to America, and with hard work, pluck and a bit of
luck forge a new life. In this telling, America is the land of opportunity,
opportunity meaning the possibility to earn an honest living free of government oppression. And most immigrants of that earlier era embraced
American values and strove to become good citizens of their adopted
country.
We aren’t living in those days anymore. The realities of immigration from
th Rf