US Immigration Policy and the Conflicted American Archetype

In 1958, as a senator in the United States, John F. Kennedy published the book, A Nation of Immigrants. His brother, Robert F. Kennedy, who later became Attorney General, wrote a foreword to the book. In it, he reflected, “Our attitude towards immigration reflects our faith in the American ideal. We have always believed it possible for men and women who start at the bottom to rise as far as the talent and energy allow. Neither race nor place of birth should affect their chances.”

If Kennedy’s words still hold true (and they usually do), then today’s America is surely facing a crisis of faith. Immigration policies in the United States have suffered from inadequate planning, contradictory protocols, and unsustainable strategies. As this impasse persists and gains more media attention, the public grows weary and divided about new policies that depart from the values that have defined American welfare, such as those recently proposed by President Donald J. Trump.

The stasis on immigration policy reflects deep rifts in the broader American psyche, as evidenced by Donald Trump’s succession of Barack Obama to President of the United States. The unprecedented and paradoxical transition from Obama to Trump represents two vivid and diverging propositions about the American ideal. This tension, involving America’s self-image, implicates US policy broadly, particularly US immigration policy, which has historically been an expression of how the US seeks to recount itself.

To disambiguate the complexity of the American immigration system, we must unravel the conflicted values characterizing today’s America that have been reflected upon Obama and Trump. By doing so, we may provide some fresh air to a suffocating policy space.

For the necessary task of disentangling this American complex and its projection on policy, we must investigate how conflicting American values have been reflected upon Obama and Trump and, consequently, stifled meaningful reform and vision about US immigration policy.