Jon Paul: The current immigration policy is racist and pure bigotry

To The Daily Sun,

The current U.S. immigration policy appears to be just repackaged bigotry with no demonstrable benefits to anyone.

Only 39% of Americans approve of the way this administration is handling deportations. They can try and portray ICE agents as heroes, but most of the time, they appear to be nothing more than masked individuals smashing car windows and attacking unarmed, non-violent individuals and their families.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that Joe Biden really messed up on border security under his watch, and I fully support removing dangerous criminals from our streets, whether they are immigrants or citizens. But forcibly removing non-violent, productive members of society now and sending them to holding warehouses, such as “Alligator Alcatraz” is just plain cruel and illegal.

This normalized, blatantly racist behavior has already metastasized in our culture and that is shameful. Also, where are we supposed to find an estimated 7.4 million workers that will be needed to fill the job vacancies created by these mass deportations? These are jobs that most Americans don’t have any interest in doing.

Typically, immigrants make up 5% of the U.S. workforce. Immigrant workers perform 1 in 8 agricultural jobs, 1 in 7 construction jobs, 1 in 7 health aid and nursing home jobs and 1 in 6 service industry jobs. Also, immigrants paid $96 billion in taxes to the U.S. in 2022. In the past decade, immigrants have also paid billions of dollars into Medicare and Social Security, (benefits they will likely never be able to use).

The bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed into law by Ronald Reagan, addressed border security and a reasonable pathway to citizenship for immigrants, (which most voters still support) and it showed that political parties can work together on important policy.

Jon Paul

Alton