Immigrants come because our country is great

I have listened to the rhetoric on immigration for many months now, and I consider the efforts by one candidate for president, to insult, degrade and vilify immigrants to be nothing more than fearmongering. I am an immigrant, so presumably, I am one of the rapists, murderers or drug runners.

Statistics actually show that both legal and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than do American citizens. It's not hard to work out why: before I became a citizen of this great country, I had to ensure that the worst I did was a speeding fine, because my green card could be revoked for criminal activity.

Those who came here as undocumented aliens are even more likely to avoid criminal behavior, because any interaction with law enforcement could lead to repatriation.

But I have a bigger problem. Our former president keeps telling us that this country is sliding toward third world status and that the problem is all the undocumented people here.

But if this country is so bad, why are they coming?

They are not coming because this country is failing. They are coming because this country is great. Like everyone else, The United States of America suffered economic hardships due to COVID-19. Unlike everyone else, The United States of America rebounded faster and better than any other nation in the world, because the economy here is greater than any other nation in the world.

So much so that the Dow Jones Index has doubled in the last four years, exactly because the U.S. economy is strong, as befits a great nation.

People are coming here not because this country was great, but because this country is great. The world has changed, and this country is changing with it. And some folks find that tough.

America's greatest asset has always been the dynamism and drive of the people who have come here to build a better life for themselves. Those people were immigrants, and those people were likely your ancestors.

I moved here in 2000 at the age of 40, and I have been here almost 25 years, during which time I first held a green card, and then became a naturalized American.

I chose to become an American.

I am proud of Emma Lazarus, and I am proud that her famous words grace the Statue of Liberty:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

from “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, Nov. 2, 1883.

I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a citizen of a great country, which offers opportunity and liberty. I'm not proud of a person who denigrates those who come here seeking a better life.

Rev. Kevin Jones is pastor at First Christian Church, in Center Point and chaplain of the Hawkeye Area Labor Council AFL-CIO.