Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

As I write this, it is the morning of July 4^th and we should be celebrating America.

Instead, at least if we allow ourselves to follow today’s news, we are dealing with two realities – Joe Biden is too old to serve as president and Donald Trump is too insane and addled to take the nation’s top political job.

It appears that we may stuck with too bad options, though, as I have said before, if that remains as the choice, I’ll go with Biden.  Better to have an old person than a felon (Trump).

One of Trump’s main messages grates on me every time I hear it:  Immigration is bad for the country.

It’s  just not true.  But, that can be said about almost anything Trump says – truth is not an arbiter.

I have written about this before, suggesting that, in a way, all of us are immigrants.  Either our forebears came from another country to America, or we did.

Trump, too.

Then, yesterday, I read a story in the Wall Street Journal touting immigration as being one of the factors behind a strong U.S. economy.

Here are excerpts:

“The most economically important part of the presidential debate was a leitmotif — and at times, a heavy motif — throughout the evening:  immigration.

“While Donald Trump made many false remarks throughout the debate, he spoke a grain of truth when he said of his opponent that ‘the only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs that bounced back from the Covid.’ 

“The employment level for native-born workers is indeed below its pre-pandemic level, while foreign-born workers have accounted for all employment gains.  But contrary to Trump’s contention, that’s a strong argument for, rather than against, immigration.

“The U.S. population is aging, and millions of baby boomers retire each year.  We can expect that absent immigration, we would have a decreasing working-age population and shrinking employment for decades to come — especially considering the low fertility rate.  This is already happening in Japan and will soon happen in many European countries.

“Meantime, millions of jobs have been added for foreign-born workers since 2019.  The majority of these immigrants were in the U.S. prior to Covid, but another roughly 10 million have arrived since then, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“These newly arrived immigrants are the main reason the U.S. economy has defied pessimistic forecasts, with 200,000 jobs added a month, real growth in gross domestic product at 3 per cent in the past year, and an inflation rate that has fallen dramatically in the past few years.  The biggest factor behind this strong economic performance is immigration.”

For me, this reality is not the major reason to support immigration, though it is important to understand this reality.

Two other factors for me:

• First, we should recognize simply this – immigrants are people and, as people, they don’t deserve to be pilloried.
• Second, those who lead our government in Washington, D.C., both in the Executive and Legislative Branches, should get their act together by agreeing on an approach to stem the tide of illegal immigration.  Tough.  Worth doing.

So, on this 4^th of July, let’s rally around America, celebrate good things happening all around us – not just negative stuff which garners more media headlines.  And recognize immigrants as “real people.”

Happy 4^th!