NINA Returns

Help wanted: NINA (No Immigrants Need Apply)

   The president is closing the Golden Door of opportunity to newcomers to America. Currently, it's about the southern border, where people from Central America seek refuge from violence in their home countries and opportunities and safety in the U.S.
   But already there are suspicions that the plan to shut down immigration will spread to affect all other nations.
   Before the presidential election, candidate Donald Trump called for "a complete shutdown of all Muslims entering the country."
   What began in the 19th Century as an employer's bid to exclude some newcomers to America from applying for jobs by posting a sign reading "Help Wanted -- NINA," an abbreviation meaning "No Irish need apply," is now reflected in the government's attitude of keeping out all immigrants.
   Anyone watching TV news programs sees pictures of children being taken from their parents and shipped to military camps thousands of miles from the southern border as their mothers and fathers are deported back to their homelands. At the same time, no provision is made for opportunities to reunite the broken families.
   Why?

   An easy explanation might be incompetence. Another would be racism, bias and bigotry. Or all of the above.
   Either way, the practice mirrors the attitudes of 19th and early 20th Century America, when companies advertised for employers with the caveat that "applicants of all races and nationalities considered -- except no Irish."
 Through the years, there was equal discrimination against Jews, Italians, Poles, Chinese and many others. When World War II broke out, people of Japanese heritage were rounded up and sent to internment camps, even though many were native-born American citizens. Currently, the bias is against Muslims and those of Middle Eastern heritage.
   Most obvious in recent weeks has been a closing of the southern border to keep out Hispanics seeking asylum and opportunity, as well as imprisonment of refugees and separating little children from their mothers. In doing so, the government operates "tender age" facilities for infants and toddlers.
   The latest news is that while more than 2,000 children have been taken into custody and separated from their parents, the government is setting up facilities at military bases to take in 20,000 children.
   
   These are the latest and most flagrant signs of the isolationist tactics of the Trump administration. It's not a big leap to extend this strategy to shut down all immigration from every other country.
   It's been tried before. But the lure of freedom and opportunity has always been so strong a part of America that newcomers kept arriving, working  hard and succeeding.
   The list of those who have succeeded in America includes the president himself, whose grandfather was ousted from Germany. It includes his current wife, Melania, who came from Slovenia. The list also includes his Kushner in-laws, whose family were refugees from the Holocaust.
   In addition, there are many members of Congress who were born in other countries and came to America seeking, and finding, success.
   
   So if the Trump administration wants to slam shut the Golden Door, spitefully ignoring the famous words of welcome on the Statue of Liberty, does that mean that all immigrants, as well as their descendants, will have to go back to their countries of origin?
   Odds are the Mohawk, Iroquois, Arapaho, Apache, Sioux and millions of other Native American tribes people might well agree with that.