The USA, Land of Immigration

When talking about a topic that touches your heart so deeply, like the so-called “Muslim ban”, it is hard to express all you have to say and at the same time keep it formal and academic.

When I think about the immigration system in the US, what comes to mind are questions that are deeply rooted in the main issue of this topic: What actually is an American? Can you become a real American? These questions arose from a time long before Trump, Obama or Bush. Everybody knows the history of the young continent Amerika. In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered a land that he thought was India. Soon he would meet the Native inhabitants which he called “Indians”, unaware of the fact that he just named a people that would soon be hunted down and killed in sacrifice of the new population that would soon spread all over the once peaceful ground.

In 1607 the era of immigration, as I want to call it, began. People saw the potential in America to become a land of not only religious freedom, but a place that gives you the chance to live a life where you are free to be who you are. This movement of people starting to immigrate into the free world, calling themselves Americans, posed the question to many writers and philosophers what actually makes an American. They were asking themselves if there were some kind of requirements that have to be met to call oneself an American.

If you want to go deeper you have to ask yourself whether there is actually something behind the distinction between the country you were born and the way your personality was built. Your character is made of experiences, upbringing, education, and many other outside influences that can vary so much depending on the people around. Nobody is better just because they were born in a country like America or Germany etc.

With all that said, I wonder how someone can act so harshly believing that people from certain countries and beliefs might pose a threat simply because they were born in the “wrong” circumstances. The halt on the immigration program in the USA is destroying people’s lives instead of giving people a new chance like it used to after it was first discovered.