Immigrants are part of the solution

Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, writes about “The Real Lesson of Springfield, Ohio” in Foreign Policy Magazine. The thesis is that a “revitalized Midwestern city shows that immigrants can be a solution to economic decline and malaise.” Read excerpts below and the complete analysis here.

Besides circulating a dangerous and toxic set of illiberal ideas that has caused Ohio officials to station guards at the Springfield schools and prompted two local colleges to go remote, Trump’s narrative erases the city’s real lesson for the United States: how immigrants are revitalizing decaying economic areas that have been left behind for decades.

Like places in many other so-called Rust Belt states, Springfield had been a city that struggled as the new high tech, financial service-centered economy took hold in the 1990s. But now, Springfield is booming. The recent history of the city shows not why immigrants are a threat to existing populations, but why they are part of the solution to economic decline and malaise.

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Legal immigrants didn’t only provide labor in Springfield, but also boosted the vitality of downtown. Caribbean food trucks and restaurants brought new energy to sleepy streets. Haitian Flag Day became a popular annual event. On Sundays, the prayers and song from the St. Raphael Church, where there has been a regular afternoon Haitian Creole Mass, filled the air. Until recent months, immigrants were understood locally to be integral to the fact that Springfield was standing strong once again. CultureFest, recently canceled because of safety threats, has been a well-attended annual two-day celebration of the city’s vibrant and diverse cultural offerings.

During an interview with NBC News, one Springfield pastor said, “The real story is that for 80 years we were a shrinking city, and now we’re growing.”

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Rather than villainizing newcomers, it might be better—as so many Republicans have done until recent years—to concentrate on policies that would help to integrate legal immigrants who arrive to blighted areas seeking to work, spend, and play. Not long ago, when George W. Bush was president, a substantial number of Republicans and Democrats worked together on a grand bargain that would combine rationalizing the immigration system, including creating a legal path to citizenship for millions of people already in the United States, with tougher border and deportation policies.

Over the past decade, the first part of that bargain has disappeared. Most Republicans focused on the second part of the deal, while many Democrats abandoned hope for the first. Springfield is an important reminder that the politics of exclusion will erode the very people who have been a backbone to the nation’s economy and culture.