Op-Ed: Immigrants Should be Celebrated, not Condemned

The Republican Party’s tactic of using immigrants as a political boogeyman has gotten old. 

By: Jessica Guo, Special to The Star

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people who live there,” former president Donald Trump declared during the September presidential debate.

The Republican presidential candidate’s 30-second statement translated into more than 30 bomb threats in the small town of Springfield, Ohio. Schools and government buildings were shuttered after Trump accused Haitian immigrants living in Ohio of eating pets. Due to safety concerns, two colleges moved to online learning and some elementary schools were evacuated. 

As threats continued, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine dispatched 36 troopers from the state patrol across the 17 schools in the Springfield City School District. DeWine claimed that most threats were from foreign countries and refused to elaborate further. Despite the impacts of inflammatory rhetoric, Republican Vice President candidate JD Vance continued to defend Trump’s stories even after he admitted the rumors were false. In his first term, Trump warned against migrant caravans, claiming murderers and drug dealers were “invading” America. In reality, those attempting to migrate here were desperate for asylum. 

Though far from the truth, Republican candidates have employed scare tactics that criminalized immigrants for years.  

Former President Ronald Reagan encouraged voters to make the nation great again, implying a declining nation and demanding a crackdown on crime. In recent years, Republican politicians have pushed a narrative of cartels, criminals, and murderers flooding American borders, urging voters to support Republican candidates for a decisive crackdown on border security. For all the fire and brimstone, the Republicans have actually deported fewer than their Democratic counterparts. Trump’s term numbered an annual 500,000 deportations. In contrast, the Biden administration averaged more than 1 million deportations in 2022 alone. 

In March 2020, Trump passed Title 42, a policy that turned away asylum seekers under the pretext of curbing the spread of COVID-19. Biden operated under the policy for two years and then terminated it as the pandemic came to a close. Throughout his term, Biden’s high number of deportations were partially due to the sheer number of asylum seekers and illegal crossings. Additionally, post-pandemic circumstances led to a spike of illegal crossings in comparison to Trump’s presidency, warranting a greater number of expulsions from Biden. 

Republicans have also weaponized rumors of undocumented immigrants voting for Democrats. A recent Ruters headline reads “Eight US States to Vote on Amendment to Ban Noncitizen Voters. The same article says that it’s “already illegal for noncitizens to vote” and that “independent state reviews show there is little evidence that noncitizens are voting in presidential elections. However, this is what Trump and his Republican counterparts are alleging. In the recent vice presidential debate, JD Vance would not admit that Trump lost the last election. Trump, Vance and the Republicans are ready to blame the electoral system, voter fraud and immigrants for his loss. Trump can’t accept the fact that in two presidential elections, he lost the popular vote twice, the first against Hillary Clinton and the second time against Biden, and the general election once. Instead, he blames immigrants. 

What Republicans fight against is the very thing that defines our nation. The United States is a vibrant cultural hub where people can celebrate their distinct cultural traditions. We celebrate the lives of immigrants, and their contributions to this country. During WWII, Albert Einstein developed the equation that would lead to the atomic bomb. Later when the United States entered the war, the Bracero Program was launched and millions of Mexican men toiled on American soil to fill in the labor shortage and stabilize the economy. Today, immigrants not only contribute to fields such as the arts and sciences, but they also contribute to the vibrancy of a cultural melting pot.