Controversy over immigration is nothing new in the United States.
Then-Mayor Joseph Shakespeare told reporters that Italians in his city lacked “honor, truth, pride, religion, or any quality that goes to make a good citizen,” as Richard Gambino chronicled in his book “Vendetta.”
“Except for the Poles, we know of no other nationality which is [as] objectionable as a people,” the mayor continued.
The year was 1890, the city was New Orleans and the mayor’s sentiments would result in the creation of Columbus Day – at a terrible price.
Italians who arrived after the Civil War had already stirred resentment by their eagerness to work even at low wages and their close cultural cohesion that included family, faith, and language at a time of rising crime.
And then on Oct. 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy was gunned down in a volley of shotgun fire.
Mortally wounded, Hennessy was asked for the identity of his assailants. His reply was a racial slur for Italian Americans.
Police fanned out under orders to “arrest every Italian you come across.”
Subsequent mistrials and acquittals of apprehended suspects prompted thousands of frustrated citizens to break into the city jail on March 14, 1891, and kill every Italian they could find.
The onslaught ended with what historians called the largest lynching in American history with many Italians hanging from lamp posts in the French Quarter.
The assault was widely supported nationwide but not by the Italian government.
President Benjamin Harrison responded forcefully to the attack and in a move to repair relations with Italy made Columbus Day a national holiday.
The treatment of Italians in New Orleans in the 1890s offers two important lessons for Americans in 2024.
First, new groups arriving in America are inevitably subject to hostile treatment upon journeying to a new land that includes unjustified smears.
Second, those badly treated groups make major contributions to the United States economy.
This is a point frequently overlooked in the discussion of immigration by the Republican nominee for president and his supporters.
But it has important implications for New York and the rest of the country.
Recent immigrants, like previous immigrants, have helped drive the strongest economy in the world. This is reflected in record-low unemployment, highest growth in GDP among advanced nations and the stock market’s record highs. .
In February, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released an updated 10-year
economic and budget forecast whose numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier. A key reason: immigration
CBO Director Phill Swagel estimated that the infusion of immigrants from 2023 to 2034 would add $7 trillion to the country’s gross domestic product and increase government revenue by $1 trillion.
Numerous studies show that immigrants are, among other things, more entrepreneurial than native-born Americans.
They also keep down costs. Dairy farmers across the country who rely on immigrants for more than half their workforce say a mass deportation of immigrants would result in the loss of businesses and large increase in the price of milk, yogurt and cheese.
On Long Island, it would raise the cost of construction, restaurant prices and health-care services.
Legal and illegal immigrants are also far less likely to commit crimes – notwithstanding all the talk of “migrant” crime from the Republican candidate – than native-born Americans. Stirring fears about newcomers may be good politics, but it is not supported by the facts.
Yes, some immigrants – like any other group – will commit crimes. But they will do so at a lower rate than native-born Americans, who have less to lose.
Does that mean people should be allowed to enter the United States illegally? No.
All countries must be able to control their borders. Ours is no different.
Illegal crossings are lower now than they were at the end of the Trump administration, but the Biden administration was too slow to stem an influx that at times overwhelmed communities from the southern border to New York City.
Congress should pass the tough immigration reforms worked out by a bipartisan group of senators earlier this year that were scuttled at Trump’s behest.
The Trump campaign has targeted legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, saying they were illegal, ate residents’ dogs and cats and put a strain on government services.
All of which is untrue.
Ohio’s Republican governor, mayor, and business owners said Haitians were encouraged to move to Springfield, to help revitalize a struggling local economy with their strong work ethic. Which, they said, the Haitians have done.
Immigrants could do the same for Long Island and the rest of New York State.
Upstate New York cities have seen massive declines in population and economic productivity in the past 60 years. Buffalo, for examples has gone from a population of 580,000 in 1950 to 278,000 to 2020.
New York officials should ignored the fear-mongering and harness the economic power of new Americans like the Italians in New Orleans in the 1890s.
