By Henrik Fogh Rasmussen
Immigration reform is set to become a key political battleground in the coming year. Unfortunately, some of the most important points about immigration and America are missing from the current debate.
So far, policymakers and advocates have mostly focused on economics and border security. While these issues are crucial to America’s safety and prosperity in the short and medium terms, the most significant long-term effect of immigration is its impact on America’s civic culture. Without a strong civic culture, security and economic prosperity cannot last long. Yet very little has been said about this important aspect of immigration.
The current debate tends to divide immigrants into workers vs. welfare recipients, legal vs. illegal, skilled vs. unskilled, etc. However, all immigrants, regardless of their status and background, share one crucial characteristic: They uprooted themselves and chose to make America their new home. When we focus on civic culture rather than economics and security, this unifying characteristic is the most important one.
Regardless of the specific circumstances, immigration is almost by definition a risky business. For poor immigrants, the trip alone is a costly – and sometimes life-threatening – undertaking. For the more fortunate ones, the opportunity cost of leaving behind established personal networks and secure career paths can be enormous.
More often than not, immigrants are therefore psychologically compelled to succeed. Like entrepreneurs leaving behind comfortable lives to start new businesses, immigrants have to succeed in order to justify the significant sacrifices they make. Immigrants and entrepreneurs are to a large extent made of the same stuff. Not surprisingly, immigrants are much more likely to also be entrepreneurs than the average citizen. It is no coincidence that 40 percent of today’s S&P 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.
Furthermore, a large component of success for the immigrant is to put down solid roots in his or her new community. Only uprooted people can truly appreciate the importance of roots. The senses of place, belonging and deep familiarity are missing from daily life and must be recreated for the immigrant to feel whole again. Most immigrants therefore have a particularly strong urge to become engaged and patriotic citizens. They have to work hard to create new roots and therefore value these roots all the more once they are in place.
Being accepted as a good citizen in one’s new country is a profound psychological need for most immigrants. That is why naturalization ceremonies – my own included – often bring tears to the eyes of participants and spectators alike.
The missing question in the current immigration debate is this: What will happen to American patriotism without immigrants?
This is an inconvenient question for both the left and the right, which is perhaps why so few people are asking it. The left is uncomfortable with the very idea of patriotism, seeing America as just one of many nations in the world, perhaps even a fundamentally flawed nation. The right is uncomfortable with the notion of immigrant patriotism, seeing patriotism as essentially tied to one’s country of birth – the Motherland or Fatherland – rather than one’s country of choice.
Yet immigrant patriotism is the very soul of America. Contrary to the beliefs of many left-wingers, America is truly exceptional. And contrary to the beliefs of many right-wingers, what makes America exceptional is the fact that we offer immigrants from all over the world unmatched opportunities to put down fresh, strong roots and to grow and flourish as human beings.
Abraham Lincoln spoke eloquently about immigrant patriotism during his legendary 1858 campaign to unseat Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois:
“When they [the immigrants] look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration and so they are.”
Throughout American history, the continuous influx of immigrants has served as an invaluable reminder of the first principle of the Declaration: “That all men are created equal.” The fact that people from all over the globe settle and succeed in America proves the truth of this principle.
It is worth noting that Abraham Lincoln owed a large part of his 1860 election victory to immigrants. As Henry Villard of the New York Herald noted at the time:
“In Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin, native Republicans now openly acknowledge that their victory was, if not wholly, at least to a great extent, due to the large accessions they received in the most hotly contested sections from the German ranks.”
Without immigration, Lincoln might not have been elected, and the principle of equality might not have been preserved. And without immigration, America could not continue to stand for this principle today. An open and dynamic America proves that it truly does not matter what circumstances you were born into. A closed and stagnant America would betray everything the Founders stood for.
Henrik Fogh Rasmussen is the founder of Rasmussen Public Affairs and an immigrant to the United States from Denmark. He lives in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, Springfield, Illinois.
