Immigrants and America’s Future

The formal name of the Statue of Liberty, which has greeted visitors sailing into New York harbor since 1886, is “Liberty Enlightening the World.” A bronze tablet inside the statue’s pedestal displays a poem by Emma Lazarus that reads, in part, “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…” Those words have welcomed generations of immigrants to the United States.

Countless families across the U.S. trace their heritage to immigrants—many of whom arrived under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. But wherever they come from, immigrants make the trek to the United States for the same reason: to make a better life for themselves and their children. These “new Americans” became the building blocks of our nation’s communities. Succeeding generations have helped make our nation prosperous and keep our great cities thriving.

It was generations of immigrants that built our nation, and by working constructively to fix our broken immigration system, we can lay the economic foundation that America needs to win the future. Unfortunately the debate over immigrants’ role in our nation has grown increasingly polarized and heated. This need not be so.

Read the full text of the article at AmericasQuarterly.org.

Hilda L. Solis is the twenty-fifth secretary of labor and the first Latina to hold the position in U.S. history.