By Frank F Islam & Ed Crego, July 9th, 2026 (Image credits: Tom de Boor, JNCGPT54)

The United States of America is an immigrant nation. For centuries, immigrants have migrated here because of this nation’s ideas and ideals, and the opportunity it provides them to pursue the American dream.

Since Trump has returned to the White House, immigrant has become a dirty word. They are not to be given opportunities, but instead to be jailed and deported.

Our nation’s ideas and ideals have been replaced by ICE and ignorance. Recently, in a Federal Appeals court, a Department of Justice attorney went so far as to assert that President Trump could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty without any consequences.

The poem on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, written by Emma Lazarus in 1883, ends as follows:

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.

In 2026, there is no golden door for those immigrants. The golden door and windows and rooms are in Trump’s White House alone.

We are living in divergent and disastrous times. Our nation is being reverse-engineered, not to conform to history, but to conform to one person and his supporters’ beliefs and values.

Truth be told — and it should. This nation was founded by immigrants, and in the 250 years since then — because of its founding principles — immigrants from around the world have come here and played a critical role in advancing our democracy and making the United States a better and fairer place for all.

Yori Applebaum, makes this point clearly in his article for The Atlantic, stating Americans defined their nation:

… by their commitment to a common creed — of equality, rights, and opportunity — and to a corresponding set of democratic ideals that they were modeling for the world. In practice, they generally fell short of those principles, sometimes seeming to pursue their abnegation more than their fulfillment. But the white men who built their fledgling republic around an idea, instead of around a common ancestry, opened the possibility that any who subscribed to its creed could become a citizen. Over time, other Americans demanded that the nation live up to its ideals and recognize their equality. For more than two centuries, our creedal nationalism has been a source of strength, binding together Americans of diverse faiths and backgrounds.

We have celebrated and commemorated the diversity of immigrants and their contributions to moving our great nation forward in our past writing. Famous first-generation immigrants we’ve named include:

Albert Einstein (originally from Germany), I.M. Pei (an architect from China), Joseph Pulitzer (a newspaper publisher from Hungary), Felix Frankfurter (a Supreme Court justice from Austria), Madeleine Albright (the Secretary of State from Czechoslovakia) and Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, known as Mother Cabrini (a nun from Italy).

Every 4th of July since 2006, the Carnegie Corporation of New York (recently renamed the Andrew Carnegie Foundation) names a class of Great Immigrants. This year’s class is comprised of citizens from twenty-one countries, a diverse range that includes Afghanistan, Argentina, China, India, Malaysia, Scotland, and South Korea.

It is not just the Great Immigrants who have made a difference in moving this country forward. It is the millions of immigrants who, with their brains and brawn, have helped make the American economy hum.

In its announcement this year, the Carnegie Foundation reported:

According to the American Immigration Council there are 48 million immigrants in America, about half of whom are naturalized citizens. Immigrants make up 14 percent of the U.S. population and account for 23.6 percent of entrepreneurs, 28.4 percent of health aides, and 23.6 percent of STEM workers. Fifty-nine percent of start-ups valued at $1 billion or more were founded or co-founded by immigrants and 66 percent of billion-dollar companies in the U.S. were founded or co-founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, according to a 2026 report by the National Foundation for American Policy.

Add to this what Tara Watson highlights in her research report for the Brookings Institution, issued in March of this year:

• Immigration contributes positively to economic growth by expanding the labor force, increasing consumer demand, and supporting overall GDP growth.
• Empirical evidence indicates that immigrants have historically contributed more in tax revenue than they receive in public benefits, creating a substantial fiscal surplus for the U.S. government over time.
• Immigration plays a critical role in mitigating the economic effects of an aging population by increasing the share of working-age individuals who support social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

To sum up, the bottom line is that immigrants of all types and from locations around the globe have increased America’s bottom line. If their migration had continued to be managed effectively and efficiently, they would still be doing so. The Trump administration’s emphasis on closing the border and deportation, however, has reduced the immigration flow, and will have a negative impact on both the American economy and our nation’s future as an equitable democracy.

This administration has denigrated immigrants. In our semiquincentennial year, we need to celebrate them, to commemorate them, and to remember America is an immigrant nation.

In doing so, we should reflect on the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy from his book, A Nation of Immigrants, written in 1958 before he became president:

The abundant resources of this land provided the foundations for a great nation. But only people could make the opportunity a reality. Immigration provided the human resources to make the opportunity a reality. More than that, it infused the nation with a commitment to far horizons and new frontiers, and thereby kept the pioneer spirit of American life, the spirit of equality and of hope always alive and well.