Internalizing this Emma Lazarus poem, famously inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, is less about altruism and compassion, and more about plain common sense (you know, not being a dumbass).
Crapping on immigrants and migrants in America is among the more moronic forms of dehumanization in a veritable smorgasbord of fake problems that rightwing nationalists keep frothing on about.
For starters, without immigrants this economy would crash and burn, eventually becoming a backwater, lower middle-income, plantation republic. Hell, that’s how it started, despite all the brute advantages it had from colonialism, genocide, and slavery. It needed immigrants to become an industrial superpower.
Immigrants pay taxes without representation and contribute more into the system than they take out. They are not eligible for the vast majority of social security and welfare benefits, while still paying into it. Immigrants are less likely to break the law and more likely to stay working longer hours, than Americans with birthright privilege. We, as citizens, benefit immensely from this unequal arrangement.
This only works if America allows for the open, competitive, free exchange of people and capital. America needs to embrace humanism and not dumber, baser instincts like religious nationalism.
More importantly, it needs to continue being a desirable place for immigrants and migrants. Else this economy is dead. All your racist parents, grandparents, uncles, and aunts are increasingly being taken care off by immigrants and migrants who are willing to put up with crap wages. All the roofing crews in my neighborhood are staffed solely with hard working dudes from Central and South America. I’m pretty sure Liam, Tyler, and Cody from vanilla ‘burb highway town America aren’t applying to be fruit pickers any time soon.
Health, construction, agriculture, retail services, hospitality…entire sectors would collapse without migrant and immigrant labor.
In short, xenophobia is dehumanizing and downright idiotic. Stop it. Get a life. Do something productive rather than demonizing people who keep your economy of excess running.
love liberation struggle 
