Sure, Mr. President-elect, Uncontrolled Immigration Was a Winning Topic, But Let’s Not Lose Sight of the Human Side

May your next term Mr. President-elect not become one mired in retribution and recrimination as some peevish prognosticators incensed by their party losing the election so profoundly are caustically predicting. 

That’s how prickly prophets like former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton Robert Reich is blabbing like an online fortune teller how you plan to target your political enemies for prosecution — including Democrats, journalists, and critics like his silly self.  Show him how offramp he is!

Show him how you’ll be remembered as a fair, courageous and uplifting leader, as one who’ll inspire us all to be our best and have our nation rise to new peaks taking even the least fortunate among us to greater heights.

Show hawkish third Reich writers how wrong they are in predicting you’ll start a second civil war with your plan “to use the military to round up at least 11 million undocumented people inside the United States — even if it means breaking up families — sending them to detention camps, and then deporting them.”  Phooey! That’s not youey!

This is nonsense as we know and pray you’ll keep firmly in mind what has helped to Make America Great Again and again, not just the strongest, wealthiest, most successful, and most powerful nation on this earth, but a lighthouse, a beacon, a sanctuary and solace for the millions who’ve helped to make us the greatest among nations—immigrants.

Yes, but they need to migrate right and proper and most important, legally.  Our borders need to be cleaner, more controlled, and immigration more carefully supervised and for a change done legally, and not be a rampant stampede of undocumented and unsavory persons released from prisons to come prey on us. 

Immigrants, when you come to America you must enter this idyllic place legally to finally breathe free air and live out your once-tormented lives in peace, under an inspiring tranquility, amid the blessing of all blessings-freedom.

Know that we are kindred spirits as our ancestors too have sailed, trekked or strode across borders into this great country of ours.  They too were what has become almost a bad word today, immigrants.

Let us never forget that most of our forefathers and mothers were once as Emma Lazarus poetically described . . . “those tired, poor huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” 

We were all once the wretched refuse, homeless and tempest-tossed for whom America lifted a lamp making a golden door for us to enter at our shore.

Let us always remember we are all immigrants or descendants thereof having constituted what has helped so greatly to Make America Great Again and do it over and over with each new arrival at our borders, seaports and airports. 

Of course they must enter legally, and provide proof they’re not robbers, rapists, pillagers or plunderers, but have come to work hard and live good, wholesome lives in a country where they will respect and abide by its laws.   

However, while we exert lawful controls on immigration, let’s try to avoid family separations and stop companies from hiring illegal workers that undercut America’s wages.

Immigrants must come to our shores aspiring to obey our laws while working tirelessly in our factories producing goods we need, in fields gathering food we eat, improving our roadways to make our travels swifter and safer, work on our office buildings and dwellings to keep us all comfortable, healthy, and happy.

But let not those few bad apples give the majority an evil, pet-eating image, when most are good and worthy people deserving our welcome.

Mr. President-elect, while we know you will bring order and sensible control to our borders, please let us do so without denigrating any further what was and still is so very important and essential to our success as a nation—immigration. 

Let’s restore immigrants’ battered image by underscoring the important, exhilarating role they have played and will continue to play resolutely in helping to Make America Great Again! 

Tom Madden is proud to be a descendent of immigrants from Ireland and Italy. He once lived in Rome dubbing Italian films into English with a New Jersey accent.  He migrated to Florida after growing up in Atlantic City, NJ and successful careers as a journalist and network television executive in nearby Philadelphia and New York City.

These days he writes a weekly blog at www.maddenmischief.com and books, including his latest Planetary Lifeguard, Blowing the Whistle on Climate Change.  When not writing, Madden’s managing his PR firm, TransMedia Group, together with his tireless daughter Adrienne Mazzone.