THE MESSAGE OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE DELIVERING TO IMMIGRANTS

National Review

 

The Message Our Government Should Be Delivering to Immigrants

By MADELEINE KEARNS

January 14, 2024 6:30 AM

 

Come with a plan, and only when authorized.

 

One of New York City’s hidden gems is its Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side. Between 1863 and 1935, more than 15,000 immigrants from more than 20 countries called the tenement building their home. Today, tour guides provide personal histories of selected immigrant families in their reconstructed apartments. On my most recent trip, I learned about the Moore family, who came to New York from Ireland in the 1860s, after the Irish potato famine and around the time of the American Civil War.

 

Bridget Moore (then “Meehan”) arrived first, in 1863, when she was 17 years old. At the time, many young female immigrants worked as live-in maids for wealthy families uptown. Our guide explained that it was common for these young women to remain single, since getting married was a major economic downgrade. But evidently Bridget thought married life was worth the sacrifice. After about a year, she married another immigrant, Joseph, and moved downtown to live among the poor.

 

The young couple moved first to the Irish neighborhood of Five Points, and then to “Little Germany,” to 97 Orchard Street, what is now the Tenement Museum. They were Catholic and parishioners at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At the time of the move, they had three daughters under the age of six: Mary Catherine, Jane, and Agnes. Sadly, Agnes died at five months old, due to malnutrition. Over the course of the next decade, Bridget gave birth to five more girls. The infant mortality rate in the Irish community at the time was 25 percent. But for the Moores, it was more like 50 percent. Only four of their girls made it past childhood, and only one into old age. Bridget died at age 36.

 

The Moores were contemporaries of William M. Tweed, also known as “Boss Tweed,” the Democratic politician and leader of Tammany Hall (NYC’s Democratic Party’s executive committee) who plundered New York City of an estimated $30 million to $200 million. Tweed provided generously for the Irish and other immigrants, not out of altruism but political expediency. Boss Tweed eagerly instituted “naturalization committees” through which, essentially, Irish immigrants were provided a pathway to citizenship in exchange for votes. To this day, this attitude persists among some Democrats. But for others, the seemingly unstoppable flow of illegal migrants has become a major liability.

 

Look at New York, for instance. Over the last year, over 100,000 migrants have arrived in the city, a crisis that Mayor Eric Adams has suggested will “destroy New York City.” In the summer, he desperately handed out flyers in English and Spanish explaining that the city is very expensive and urging migrants to “please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the US.” Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work. Last week, a Brooklyn high school was used to house about 500 migrant families in bad weather conditions, requiring the school’s 3,400 students to do lessons remotely and sparking public outrage.

 

The immigrants crossing the southern border are — like our 19th-century immigrant ancestors, and like all human groups — a mixed bag. Some are criminals. The majority are violating U.S. immigration law. But many are more simply people in desperate pursuit of a better life, just as you or I would be if we were in their shoes. The Christian response is to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and shelter the homeless, as you find them. But the state’s obligation is to its own citizens, defending its borders and enforcing its laws. In the long run, leniency toward illegal migrants becomes cruelty toward one’s own citizens and legal residents.

 

If you need proof of this, just look at the United Kingdom and its overwhelmed social-welfare system. In the U.K., the “stop the boats” campaign, the U.K.’s version of “build a wall,” has been an abject political failure. The current conservative government’s scheme to deport migrants to a third country for processing was rejected by the U.K. supreme court. Having failed to deliver on his promise to reduce net immigration by 300,000, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took aim at an easier target — legal immigrants.

 

Sunak proposed doubling the salary threshold that a person must meet to bring a noncitizen spouse to the U.K. As Joseph Sternberg in the Wall Street Journal observes, the proposal misunderstands “the public’s belief that citizenship ought to confer special rights and privileges on those who hold it.” As the boats keep coming, preventing a British-born teacher from bringing her Spanish husband to live with her in the U.K., as is the case with my friend, only intensifies anger.

 

Back to the Moores. According to the New York Times, “when museum researchers contacted a few descendants of one of the Moores’ daughters, Jane, they learned that the family did not even know their ancestors had ever lived at 97 Orchard Street.” Births, deaths, and marriages are all matters of public record. But without oral histories being passed down through the generations, the struggles and toils of the Moores’ daily life are easily forgotten.

 

It’s right to remember the sacrifices of our immigrant ancestors as well as to be grateful for the opportunities they were offered (of which we are indirect beneficiaries). Doing so ought to incline us toward generosity. Still, the difference is this. In 19th-century America, the message to immigrants was — come when welcomed, and with a plan. You must find somewhere to live, a way of earning money, a person to support you. Contrast this with today’s message. Come as you please and enjoy the free stuff. It’s no wonder we’re in such a mess.

AH: The Canadian government should be delivering this same message.