Immigrants did WHAT?!

As the newest round of insults are being flung between the two major political parties in this country - not unlike monkeys flinging their sh – I mean “poop” at one another, I find myself wanting to stop talking to people altogether. It amazes me when people don’t know that they’re covered in poop themselves, before throwing a handful at somebody else.

But poop aside, I can’t resist commenting on a certain topic that was touched upon by the (currently) most famous politician in our country. The reason why is because of how morally reprehensible it was, but more than that, it wasn’t factual in the least. I can’t in good conscience not acknowledge the cruel and inaccurate message that the leader of our country tried to instill into the hearts of immigrants who came to our country for a better life. Most of them don’t have expectations of grandeur, they simply want to live in a place that has access to clean water, healthcare, and where they don’t have to constantly worry about a violent end to their lives and the lives of their children.

Immigrants are not a blight on this country – in fact, they are quite the opposite. And you don’t even have to take my word for it! After all, who am I? I’m not a scholar, I don’t have a position of power. I’m your friend from across the hall, your cousin that you see every few years, that one coworker addicted to caffeine. I’m an average American with average opinions. So, if you’re looking for facts to support my claim, there are numerous academic articles from college professors, politicians, business owners, research market analysists, and more on the topic. I think that’s the primary problem with our opinions today – a lot of our opinions are just that: they have no facts to back it up with. Your brother’s best friend’s cousin works for ICE and they say immigrants are bad, and they obviously know what they’re talking about.

Just the other day I was reading a book called “The Millionaire Next door”, by Thomas J. Stanley. It was published in the 1990’s, which means that there are more updated resource materials you could look at. However, the reason I bring this particular book up is because it is so well supported by research. Stanley and a group of other well-educated analysists were hired by a corporation to interview millionaires in the United States. They wanted to know what millionaires were actually like, outside of how the media portrays them. They interviewed a wide selection of millionaires and found out some surprising information. For example, did you know that the majority of millionaires are first generation? Most of them come from a background of poverty, and they built themselves up from nothing. They also never spend money on flashy cars, a huge house, a fancy suit. Very, very few millionaires today received their money from inheritance, because most inheritance millionaires are from decades past. Most of those prestigious families already spent all the money they had, because they never had to understand the value of a dollar.

Why am I talking about this? Because another interesting fact is that a high ratio of millionaires in America (at least in the 90’s), are immigrants. That’s right – those “lazy” immigrants the president is referring to started with no money in their pockets and built a future for their children, and their children’s children. And do you know how they did it? Through hard, honest work. By getting up at five am and coming home at seven pm every day. They are entrepreneurs, owning gas stations and sheet metal scrap businesses. When it comes down to the number of people in this country whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, there’s a lot. But when you calculate how many hundreds of thousands of non-immigrants there are by the percent of those non-immigrants who are millionaires, guess what? The immigrants have it. They are hard-working, they are industrious, they are our future.

So, if you want to prevent immigrants from coming to our country, just remember that a lot of the businesses that are the backbone of our society are a result of their hard work, not yours. Immigration is not a “pick and choose” program. Let’s just see how this plan works out for us, huh?