Before we deny the American dream, we should think of the dreamer's descendants | Opinion

By Dorothy Rogers

As Election Day approaches, airtime and screen space are filled with the same old claims about the “dangers” of immigration.

Donald Trump continues to stoke xenophobia, accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood of our country” and being “like a military invasion.” Kamala Harris, meanwhile, reminds her supporters of “what they did to tear families apart at the border” when Trump was in power and looks forward to a “better future” for our multicultural nation.

Yet we often lose sight of the real people behind the barriers we propose and our political rhetoric.

Consider a young man named Felipe — let's say he was born in Colombia, where there was little economic opportunity and even less political stability when he was growing up. Military service was mandatory and young workers were often killed in dangerous combat missions. At just 16 years old, Felipe felt his only option was to seek a better life in America. It was the beginning of a journey that countless others took — including many ancestors of future presidents and the most die-hard immigration hardliners.

Felipe arrived in New York and found work in a small shop in Spanish Harlem, earning just enough to pay his bills while learning English. A few years later, he moved to Seattle, where he worked in a cafe and rented a room in the red-light district. He didn't like the seedy area, but it was difficult to find affordable housing. What else could he do?

After about ten years, Felipe had enough money to open a restaurant in a building that was rumored to be used for illegal gambling and had a small brothel on the top floor. Perhaps Felipe knew about it but looked the other way to go along. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he had no idea.

A few years later, Felipe joined a friend across the Canadian border to open a beautiful lakeside hotel. It is unclear whether he knew about the female “escorts” and a not-quite-legal gambling operation at the establishment. After some time, the police raided the place, but Felipe had already left the region for unknown reasons. His business partner was charged with a jewel robbery and running a sex parlor. But let's assume Felipe was innocent.

Felipe, now in his 30s and financially successful, headed back to Colombia to find a bride. We'll call her Estela. They both wanted to stay in their homeland, but there were so many more opportunities in the United States. He promised Estela that if she got homesick in America, they would return.

The couple settled in Jackson Heights, a Spanish-speaking neighborhood in New York City, where Estela was able to adjust to life in the United States. Two years later, they visited her family in Colombia to show their new baby. Estela begged Felipe to stay. But when he had evaded military service years earlier, he had to leave Colombia or face prison.

Felipe and Estela somehow managed to re-enter the United States after assuring immigration authorities that he had lived here continuously since arriving in the 1980s, but in fact he had spent a year in Colombia and at least five years in Canada. After receiving re-entry permission, he and Estela (who was now five months pregnant with their second child) settled in New York, where their children grew up as American citizens.

Regardless of whether you feel compassion or condemnation after reading this report, remember that the identities and countries of origin of “Felipe” and “Estela” have been changed to protect anonymity.

Your real names?

Friedrich and Elisabetha Trump, born in Germany at the end of the 19th century – the grandparents of Donald J. Trump.

From about 1885 to 1905, the two faced exactly the same challenges and opportunities described here.

Ironically, under the Birthright Citizenship Act (HR 140), proposed by then-President Trump in 2017, an ambitious young man like Felipe/Friedrich would have been subject to deportation from the United States, and his son – Donald Trump’s father, a so-called “anchor baby” – would have been a permanent alien.

Under such restrictions, could Frederick Trump’s descendants enjoy the American freedoms we all value today – let alone hold political office at the national level?

Dorothy Rogers is the chair of the Department of Educational Foundations in the College for Education and Engaged Learning at Montclair State University. She teaches courses on the history and philosophy of education in America.

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