Jackie Calmes: When immigrants are demonized, the US betrays its ideals — and economic reality
We might as well just take down the Statue of Liberty. Retire the "Mother of Exiles," in Emma Lazarus' 140-year-old words. Extinguish her torch welcoming from other nations "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
And forget the rhapsodizing we've long heard, from social-studies teachers and presidents including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, about the United States being "a land of immigrants," the "shining city upon a hill," the "promised land" to millions of migrants for all of its history.
Granted, America has never fully lived up to its self-professed ideal as a
