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Stand firmly by immigrants

By Jean Lewandowski - Nashua | Jan 30, 2021

What in the world were you thinking, publishing that Cal Thomas column in last weekend’s Telegraph? You could have chosen something thoughtful about reforming the immigration system, but instead printed a hit-job against immigrants. You do understand that Nashua’s immigrant communities have helped make our city the vibrant, growing, welcoming place it is, don’t you? And by characterizing immigrants as a menace to whatever Thomas sees as the American Way of Life, you are insulting, demeaning, and possibly even endangering the very people local journalism is meant to serve and represent, right? Right??

Mr. Thomas is as unoriginal as he is insulting. He hauls out all the old nativist tropes that have been used to justify a thousand crimes against humanity over the centuries: “they” are bringing disease and crime. “They” are invaders coming to take our jobs. “They” will taint our nation’s identity by refusing to assimilate, and burden “our” taxpayers because people willing to walk a thousand miles to give their children a chance for a better life are also somehow lazy moochers. “They” are obviously unwitting shills of the socialists and communists who want to flood the land with new Democrats to bend to their will. We’ve heard it all, and seen with our own eyes – those of us who dare to open them – the suffering to immigrants, and to America’s moral standing, created by these lies.

Here’s the truth: the real danger to America is the rage and fear stoked by the kind of natvism the editors of the Telegraph chose to amplify in your pages last weekend. We’re supposed to be afraid of exhausted, hungry, desperate barefoot, people at our border and forget the home-grown terrorist groups like the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Proud Boys and nativist militias that have been terrorizing law-abiding people for generations? No! Immigrants have grown and picked the crops that feed us, built the cities we live in, taken care of our children, our homes, and our public spaces, been of service to us. Now, as they are establishing well-earned influence and stature in our towns and our nation, we’re supposed to demonize them and those who come after them? **** No!

We are proud to be Nashuans, living in a city that is officially Welcoming. We’re happy for the diversity and vibrancy of this city. We cherish the people we’ve met who have come from across the globe to live here. Some are citizens, some have “papers,” and some have waded for years, even decades, through our broken system in hopes of becoming Americans. Everyone who has benefitted from the presence of immigrants in America – and that is every one of us – should reject dangerous natvism. We should instead stand firmly by immigrants and those working to repair our immigration system so it can ease their path to citizenship. We would hope our local newspaper would do the same.

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