EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: If you don’t like immigrants, get tf out of here

If you don’t like the immigrants in this country, you can get the hell out.

You think your great, great, great-grandfather was born in this country, Sally? What about you Adam? Didn’t your ancestors, just a few generations back, come through Ellis Island? What about you Kate?

I thought so.

If you live in this country, unless you have indigenous blood in you, you have no right to tell people to “go back where they came from.” 

For the last several months, the Trump campaign has made immigrants its top scapegoat. They’re the reason why our economy isn’t working for everyday Americans. They’re the reason crime is up. They’re the reason for this and that.

I don’t want to hear anymore of it.

Did you know that in 2022 immigrants contributed $382.9 billion to federal taxes and $196.3 billion in state and local taxes? And what about those undocumented immigrants you hate so much? According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, they contributed $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022. That money is spent on your schools, your roads, your government buildings, your libraries, your parks, your streetlights.

In 2019, more than half of all hired farmworkers in the United States were immigrants, or roughly 450,000 workers. That’s the food on your table.

And don’t even get me started on the cultural significance immigrants have brought to this country. You think your hibachi just fell out of a coconut tree? You think the pad thai spot down the street would exist without immigrants? What about your favorite taco joint? How about the Puerto Rican restaurant — from the place they called the “floating island of garbage” — on the corner that you like so much? 

If you’re out here spouting hatred about immigrants and falling for the absolutely disgusting racist rhetoric out of the Trump campaign, you need to keep walking when you smell the mouthwatering scent of shawarma wafting down the street. Don’t you dare order shrimp lo mein from the China Wok next to your grocery store. You better not get your nails done, get your lawn trimmed, get your house repainted or go to the doctor for that matter. 

Because immigrants — and enslaved folks — built this damn country that you want to “protect” so much. So if you hate it here, why don’t you leave? Because we belong here as much as you do Karen, and we’re not going anywhere.