My Take: Do immigrants really pose a threat?

We can’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV today without hearing about this country’s immigration problem. But it’s really an international issue. Most countries in Europe are dealing with an influx of new populations, especially from the Middle East and North Africa. A great cry is going up to stop it.

The problem is that we can’t. Nobody ever has.

The movement of groups of people is a phenomenon older than recorded history, to judge from archeological finds. It has certainly been going on as long as written records can show us. The Exodus and the subsequent migration of the Hebrews is one of the early documented examples. You can be sure the Canaanites did not want to be “replaced” by those tribes surging across the Jordan River. Conversely, the Hebrews didn’t want their “blood” to be “poisoned” by mingling with the native population. That’s why provisions in the Mosaic law prohibit Hebrews from marrying the natives (Deut. 7:3; but they did it anyway).

About the same time as the Exodus, a group called the “Sea People” were arriving in Egypt from the West. And the Dorians were migrating from the Balkans into southern Greece.

Groups of people move for various reasons. The most basic one is the need for food. At times in the past changes in climate have made it difficult for people to grow enough food, as in Genesis 41. The only answer to that problem is to move to a more fertile location. If that location is already occupied, conflict will arise.

Another reason for migrating is fear, sometimes fear of one’s own government. Or a larger, more aggressive group may be pursuing a population. In the fifth century AD the Germans did not suddenly decide to invade the Roman Empire. The ferocious Huns, driven by hunger, were pushing them from the east. The Germans sought safety within the confines of the Roman Empire.

Greed can also be a motive for migration. Around 1500 AD Europeans wanted to enrich themselves by trading with India. Once they had established contact with the Americas, their interest shifted to gold. They certainly “poisoned” the blood of the Native Americans, introducing smallpox and other diseases that left the native population so weakened they could be vanquished by a relative handful of Conquistadors, aided by their horses and guns.

Whatever the reason for a group of people to immigrate, the result will be a change in the way of life for both the immigrants and the native population among whom they settle. The clothes they wear, the food they eat, the language they speak, the holidays they celebrate — these and other areas of everyone’s lives will change. The native group, especially, will feel they are being attacked and will want to “save” their customs and traditions. If the immigrants differ noticeably in skin color from the native population, assimilation can be difficult. In the early 20th century, many Americans wanted to severely limit immigration of “darker” people from Southern Europe and of Chinese.

When faced with an issue as large and complex as this, it can be helpful to do a “case study,” i.e., to look at one example and see if we can reach conclusions applicable to the larger problem. So, do immigrants pose a threat to the survival of our way of life, as some claim today? Let’s consider the case of Friedrich Heinrich Trump, who arrived in this country from Germany in the 1880s. He moved to Alaska during the gold rush, running a hotel and a brothel. (Such was the beginning of the Trump family fortune.) Friedrich married a woman who had immigrated from Scotland. Their grandson Donald married a Czech immigrant, with whom he had three children. Later his third wife was also an immigrant.

Does this immigrant family pose a threat to our way of life? The evidence strongly suggests that at least one of them does, a serious threat. Does this mean all immigrants pose such a threat? That’s the drawback with case studies: there are so many variables among human beings that we can’t be sure conclusions gleaned from one case apply to all. The one thing we can remind ourselves of is that everybody in America is an immigrant, whatever their reasons for coming here.

— Albert Bell is a resident of Holland.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Do immigrants really pose a threat?