This Land is Our Land
By: John Thomas
Tags: Politics, Government, Culture, Books, Immigration

Suketu Mehta is angry. He is angry about the depiction of immigrants in America today. Mehta, an author who immigrated to the U.S. when he was fourteen, admits as much in his new book, This Land is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto. Indeed, Mehta writes passionately as he lays out a comprehensive case for policies that unabashedly embrace immigration, not only in the U.S., but the world over.

He beings with a story from his family’s history.

“One day in the 1980’s, my maternal grandfather was sitting in a park in suburban London. An elderly British man came up to him and wagged a finger in his face. ‘Why are you here?’ the man demanded…” ‘Because we are the creditors.’ responded my grandfather… ‘You took all our wealth, our diamonds. Now we have come to collect.’ We are here, my grandfather was saying, because you were there.”

Throughout the book, Mehta appeals to this logic — “immigration as reparations” he calls it in one place. He argues that the wealthy western nations of the world, those who gained their riches off the exploitation of Africans and Indians, should, at the very least, allow those who want to flee lands wrecked by colonialism, the opportunity to follow “their money.”

To be sure, Mehta doesn’t stop there. He is too smart to think that people will begin to embrace increased immigration merely because of the complicated history of colonialism. To supplement his argument he provides the usual, though in this case admittedly thorough, research that show all the benefits of immigration, from reduced crime rates to the fact that immigrants, despite only constituting 13 percent of the U.S. population, start a quarter of all new businesses. He also offers cases studies like the Guyanese in Schenectady who have revived the once foundering city.

These claims and others like them present a challenge to the current conservative approach to immigration. And though much of Mehta’s anger is directed at the current administration, when judging the policies of previous administrations, he is just as quick to criticize democrats like Obama who he refers to as the “Deporter in Chief,” as he is to praise Republicans like Reagan who signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, “which gave green cards to 2.7 million undocumented people.” Mehta’s willingness to praise or rebuke regardless of party or ideology is indeed refreshing and lends credibility to his argument.

The issue of immigration isn’t going anywhere. Mehta prophesies it will be the defining issue of the 21st century. He also predicts that unless Republicans shift their position on immigration, they will be irrelevant at the national level within 20 years based on demographics alone. Maybe Mehta is right and maybe he isn’t. Either way, Our Land challenges the immigration status quo and presents Americans, conservatives and liberals alike, with the opportunity to examine an immigrant’s take on the number one issue dividing our nation. SDG

John Thomas is a freelance writer. His writing has appeared at Mere Orthodoxy, The American Conservative, and Christianity Today. He writes regularly at medium.com/soli-deo-gloria.

A version of this article first appeared at The Public Discourse.