To the editor:
I read with interest a letter to the editor in this paper titled “Immigration 101” published on March 21, 2024.
The author frets that crossings at our southern border created the housing pressures behind the gentle, state-mandated upzoning of the MBTA Communities Act. The problem with this argument is that Census Bureau data shows the state’s population is falling, not rising. The voters of Massachusetts elected officials who would pass common sense zoning legislation so that we could house young, working families and preserve the appeal of great towns like Marblehead for all generations.
The author also asks how can taxpayers sustain the immigration status quo? The question should be reversed: How can taxpayers sustain the status quo without immigrants?
In 1950, there were 16.5 workers supporting the Social Security entitlements of 1 retiree. Today that ratio is 2.8 and falling as America’s fertility rate declines. From whom should retirees get their Social Security checks?
The idea that immigrants will swamp the nation and ruin it for the native-born is as old as the Know Nothing Party of John Wilkes Booth. Between 1850 and 1910, the migrant share of the population rose from 10 to nearly 15% as millions of Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews, among others, fled various famines and oppression. The US flourished thanks to their contributions. As of today, the US remains a full percentage point below that 15% mark. This is a big country. It is not full.
The familiar refrain is that only illegal immigrants are objectionable. But what is that other than a definition? The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 arbitrarily redefined migrants as legal vs. not based on their national origins. I believe the world would be a better place had that act defined more Eastern European Jews as legal migrants during the 1930s.
Immigrants come here because they implicitly disagree with one of our presidential candidates: They come because they believe America is already great, and many of them sacrifice down to the clothes on their back to contribute and build on that greatness. Immigrants want to build roads and bridges, they want to invent impressive technologies, and they want to serve in the armed forces.
You may wonder, how can I know the minds of immigrants and what motivates them to come? I know because I am one. I am proud to be an American. I think the nation, and the world, would be a better place if there were more of us.
Sincerely,
Nicholas Ward