Immigration has recently become a popular topic in the news and social media. Due to Trump’s constant talk of building walls and enacting anti-immigration laws, people have begun to share their thoughts on the matter.
Just this weekend, many of us celebrated the holiday St. Patrick’s Day. To many, this is a holiday known for drinking green beer, wearing green clothes and pub-crawling until the bars close. However, this holiday is extremely important when it comes to the importance of immigration.
This past weekend, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny made a wonderful point when giving his remarks on the White House honoring St. Patrick.
“Here in America, in your great country, 35 million people claim Irish heritage,” Kenny said. “Ireland came to America because deprived of liberty, deprived of opportunity, of safety, of even food itself, the Irish believed. We believed in the shelter of America, in the compassion of America, in the opportunity of America. We came and we became Americans. We lived the words of John F. Kennedy long before he uttered them. ‘We asked not what America can do for us, but what we could do for America.’ And we still do.”
The anti-immigration views consistently expressed by Trump are the exact opposite of what America is supposed to represent. We are a nation of freedom and acceptance and to deny those who fear for their lives the opportunity to find a new life is a disgrace to this nation.
We shouldn’t fear the jobs that would be taken, we should imagine the jobs that could be created. We shouldn’t focus on the potential rise in crime rate, we should embrace the change and remember that those who are coming in, are most likely running from something far worse.
St. Patrick’s Day is one of the best representations of what built this country in the first place.
Although we have come so far, the beginning of this beautiful nation is all thanks to the hope and diligence expressed by none other than the first immigrants. A nation with open arms and warm hearts instead of one with walls and fear of others.