The fight over immigration reform engulfing our country presently, resulting in a partial shut-down in our government, is beginning to do economic damage to our country and citizens that goes far beyond the $5.7 billion President Trump demands for a wall.
There is a great deal of irrational behavior on the part of government leaders from both major political parties railing about all sort of issues, but to keep this short, let’s just focus on immigration.
According to the very best geopolitical scholars, from the founding of our country (Jamestown, The Pilgrims in Massachusetts, etc.) immigration has been resisted at every moment by those lucky enough to get here on an earlier boat.
Every time a new mass of immigrants from different nationalities, religions and cultures arrived, they were discriminated against, often far more violently and cruelly than we witness today. As the Scotch-Irish, Swedes, Germans, Catholic Irish, Italians and Jews came ashore on the “land of the free and home of the brave,” they were scorned, distrusted and loathed.
For the entire three hundred-year history of immigration, ours has been an agonizing process. But the raw facts are that without a continuous influx of new immigrants, we would never have survived our initial effort to settle this land let alone successfully exploiting the bounty and resources this land holds, sparking innovation and industrialization or defending and winning wars.
Spain, France and Mexico all had a strong presence in the land we now call The United States of America, and it was only through a growing immigrant population that we were successful in pushing them out. Without people…lots and lots of people coming to our land…we could never have moved beyond the Appalachian Mountains and push continuously toward the Pacific.
And now, with diminishing birth rate trends among U.S. Citizens over the last four decades, we need continuous immigration of young people to keep our country growing and thriving. A stagnant population virtually assures a stagnant economy.
The success of our country and society depends on our welcoming a steady stream of new, motived, eager immigrant groups to our land. We need to do a better job than we are doing right now to accomplish this.
It is plainly true we can’t afford to allow violent or criminal immigrant elements to freely populate our land, and strong border integrity is essential to every country. But the most important reason for our almost unbelievable success as a nation has been the diverse immigrant population we have attracted over the last 250 years and their descendants. We have been enriched by our immigrant heritage, with so many outstanding in every walk of life, such as science, the arts, medicine, humanitarian work, sports, entertainment and politics.
Moving rapidly into the 21st Century, it is essential we have intelligent, open-minded, optimistic, entrepreneurial, talented, determined and public-minded people at the forefront to conquer the challenges that lie ahead of us. In so many ways and situations, highly self-aware people will be the ones who serve us best. Many who will lead the way will be immigrants.
Everyone who thrives in the next few years will enthusiastically embrace fantastic new developing opportunities. You can take vital steps to ensure you are one of those people. Coaching in self-awareness development can make all the difference. One single discovery can make all the difference for a person.
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