Thoughts on immigration

Why a travel ban?

   Conservatives often get flagged as anti immigration on good days and racist xenophobes on most others. The reality is that every conservative can trace their ancestry to other nations. We are no different than any other Americans in that. We do however believe in legal immigration not open borders. This nation was always a beacon of freedom for oppressed and eager people from around the world and it always should be. One thing about those who came years ago was their desire to embrace America. They wanted to be free. They wanted the opportunity to make their way in this new world. They wanted the American dream.

   Edouard de Laboulaye, a French intellectual, set out to create a work to celebrate the American centennial and the recent abolishment of slavery after the civil war. He rased money and then turned to a young Auguste Bartholdi who created Lady Liberty. It is important to remember the words she uses to welcome those to our shores:

“The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

   Leave what imprisoned and lorded over you behind, come here to seek freedom from all that kept you from being the free souls your Creator desires for you.Those are the souls that create Americans. Sadly those are not the souls that we rally against today. We have people who want not only to bring the oppression of their life with them but to rise up and usurp the freedom that we know and replace it with all the horrors and atrocities that this nation was created to stand against. The degradation and physical mutilation of women, the calls for ignoring the law of the land and replacing it with sharia law is at odds with the very basis for this nation. We are a free people. We agree on few things even back in the days the Constitution was penned but, we agree on our Bill of Rights. We cannot allow any citizen any soul living on our soil to be denied these God given rights or we stop being a nation and deserve to fail. 

     So I say to potential immigrants everywhere, Come, come seeking freedom. Come to breathe the rarefied air of freedom. But when you come, bring your yearning to be free and leave your storied pomp, your laws and habits of oppression behind you and make your way forward as Americans.