Asylum seekers, refugees and migrants seeking a better life have historically turned to the United States, the land of immigrants, the nation with with a Statue of Liberty, called the “Mother of Exiles,” urging people to bring to her their “tired...poor...huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Many of these immigrants are coming south of the border, through Mexico.
President Donald Trump’s crusade against refugees and undocumented immigrants, however, is now pushing those refugees farther north, turning to a different country — our Canadian neighbors — in search of freedom. It’s a sign that our nation’s values are being purged, and it’s a sign that the United States is slowly being knocked off its perch as the world superpower.
The 5,500 mile long border between the US and Canada has traditionally been far less heavily enforced that Mexico’s. It’s the longest international boundary in the world, and, we used to be able to brag, the longest undefended border in the world.
But refugees attempting to migrate to the United States are now putting a strain on the system, moving in record numbers to the northern border in an effort to pass into a nation they believe will be less hostile to them.
In the past, immigrants who end up in Canada headed straight there; now, however, border patrol are finding cases of refugees who have lived several years in the United States deciding to try their luck up north instead, apparently feeling that the current political climate is headed in a bad direction for immigrants. The trips are often long and dangerous, and many risk dying in the freezing cold as they travel, but fear of Trump’s policies has increasingly left immigrants feeling out of options in the US. What’s more they can find a helpful immigration lawyer Toronto, in Canada.
More and more Canadian cities are declaring themselves sanctuary cities, places where the local government will not cooperate or aid in identifying and rounding up undocumented people, even as Donald Trump promises to cut off federal funding to sanctuary cities in the United States.
Since its founding, the United States has been a nation of immigrants, built on the backs of those who came searching for a better life. President Abraham Lincoln once said the nation“largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration,” but today, Trump’s “America First” rhetoric more closely resembles that of the anti-semitic stances that many took during World War II, explaining why Jews should not be let into the nation even as Hitler’s army rounded them up and murdered them in concentration camps.
As immigrants rush to the Canadian border, it is time for Americans to reflect on what this says for our nation. Donald Trump’s presidency may bring about an international change in the way people view the United States. No longer a nation of immigrants, we will soon be known as a nation hostile to foreigners, hypocrites who sought help then denied others the same help, an irrelevant player in the world of migration and connectivity.
If we cannot remain in the eyes of the world a nation for and of immigrants, we lose the American quality that has turned everyone’s eyes towards us for decades. American cannot remain a superpower if it will not play a role in a massive migrant crisis going on across the globe. The rush to Canada is the first sign of Trump’s legacy, and it’s not a good one.