To The Reader’s Forum:

Naturally, I strongly agree with President Trump that our southern border must be secured and an impenetrable wall built as soon as possible to help stop illegal immigration. Every nation has the inalienable right to protect it’s own sovereignty, in perpetuity. However, it was alarming when the president said in his February State of the Union address that he wants more legal immigration — “in the largest numbers ever.”

I favor a posture on immigration more closely aligned to that of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Trump’s own policy advisor Stephen Miller, who advocate reduced legal immigration. Because the U.S. has been “a nation of immigrants” in the past, it does not follow that we must take in millions more indefinitely. We can stop anytime.

America is full. Let’s take care of our own before we start greasing the skids for massive new waves of immigration. The first and highest responsibility of the government of any nation is to the socioeconomic well-being of it’s own people, and not to foreign nationals. Democrat efforts to grow their base through mass immigration — illegal or legal — are without value and harm American workers.

Further, people living in the U.S. use far more energy and resources per capita than residents of most other countries. Therefore, from an environmental impact standpoint, it is wildly unethical to import large numbers to live here under our consumptive lifestyle.

A long-time member of the Sierra Club, I voted in the club’s nationwide membership referendum back in the 1990s asking whether it should adopt a formal stance advocating reduced immigration to help protect the Earth’s natural environment. Regretfully, I fell for specious claims of “racism” associated with the referendum and voted against advocating limited immigration. The lesson: never let yourself be influenced by those who cry “racism” at the drop of a hat. It’s always a canard.

In fact, the “give me your wretched refuse” plaque at the Statue of Liberty should be permanently removed. Today many ignorantly point to it as if it is somehow formal U.S. policy. It is not. It was just one poem written by a solitary individual, Emma Lazarus, a single Jewish activist and writer who evidently was the 1800s version of today’s shrill “social justice warrior” far-left radicals. Her calculatedly subversive views do not represent America. Her poem sets a bad example that too many are wont to take as gospel.

Sincerely,

Newkirk L. Johnson

Warren