By Pam Bloom

Family stories might make you pause and rethink your response to today’s immigration crackdown by the current administration. I had the privilege to know my late husband’s Granny, a first-generation immigrant. Thankfully, John and I took her to dinner one summer evening and asked some family history questions. It was illuminating in what she did and didn’t say and relevant to what is happening today in our country. 

Granny was Jewish. Her answer to where she was from — “sometimes Russia, sometimes Poland,”— came with a shake of her head and a shrug of her shoulders. She grew up in a time of pogroms against Jews and Granny was about as likely to talk about that experience as most of the combat veterans I have known talk about what they went through. There’s usually an amusing or non-consequential incident and a quick change of topic. 

She was more willing to talk about arriving at Ellis Island with her mother at age 10. Her father had come first and they hadn’t seen him in years. Ellis Island was their first stop. 

Granny described her mother and an aunt clutching at each other on opposite sides of the containment fence and sobbing as Granny’s mother believed she could not travel into NYC with a relative to visit, believing she could only head to Georgia and to her husband as documented on their papers. I can only imagine how frightening it must have been to not understand rules and procedures because of a language barrier and probably being too frightened to attempt to ask what might be a forbidden question. I don’t know that they experienced many freedoms in “sometimes Russia, sometimes Poland.” 

She then spoke of how her ears ached from hearing only English and how frightening it was to be on a train to some unknown. And then came a genuine smile as she described arriving in Augusta and being surrounded by women from the synagogue and her relief to hear a language she could understand as the ladies whisked them off for baths and fresh clothes before meeting her father. And that happy ending was pretty much the end of her sharing. 

According to the National Park Service, approximately 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry back to Ellis Island. As we consider the plight of today’s immigrants, we might remember the shared history of our ancestors or those immigrants who have become part of our family and friends or are our coworkers or neighbors. Not so surprisingly, public opinion on undocumented immigrants has changed in the last six months as we see people, like those we might know, being arrested.

This change in opinion may be because reporting indicates that “65 percent of people taken by ICE had no convictions and 93 percent had no violent convictions.” — Cato Institute, 6/20/25, https://www.cato.org/blog/65-people-taken-ice-had-no-convictions-93-no-violent-convictions

More and more Americans are seeing immigrants being deported. You may know family or friends who are naturalized U.S. citizens or legal immigrants who possess green cards and who are now frightened to travel freely without the possibility of being questioned, wondering if they will be the next ICE mistake. Or your children may go to school with friends who may have never known or understood what it might mean to have undocumented parents until now. And with the recent Supreme Court ruling, many wonder if their birthright citizenship will no longer be valid.  

A 6/26/25 Quinnipiac university poll reveals that “Nearly two-thirds of voters (64 percent) say they prefer giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, while 31 percent say they prefer deporting most undocumented immigrants in the United States… Voters 56 – 39 percent disapprove of the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is doing its job.” (Six months ago it was 55 percent in favor of a pathway.) https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3926

And recently denaturalization became a top enforcement priority for the civil division of the DOJ.

“The Justice Department is aggressively prioritizing efforts to strip some Americans of their U.S. citizenship. Department leadership is directing its attorneys to prioritize denaturalization in cases involving naturalized citizens who commit certain crimes — and giving district attorneys wider discretion on when to pursue this tactic, according to a June 11 memo published online.” — NPR 6/30/25 https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/nx-s1-5445398/denaturalization-trump-immigration-enforcement

Immigration is definitely something many Americans relate to, particularly if it affects them. Although we are an immensely imperfect nation, I am hopeful that more of us are choosing to recognize our common humanity as we view the emotions and vulnerabilities that connect us in spite of our differences. I believe empathy and compassion are still American values, a golden rule that crosses many cultural boundaries and is basically about treating others with the same respect and grace we would like for ourselves. 

Please don’t ignore the many frightened folks in our community and our nation subjected directly and indirectly to the actions of a man who obviously finds a transactional value in all things golden with the exception of a golden rule. Maybe, just maybe, we need to once again remember our shared stories and acknowledge our common humanity. Empathy for our fellow humans and a pathway to citizenship may be more important than escalating the current administration’s extreme daily ICE quota for mass deportations or denying citizenship of some birthright citizens with the swipe of a sharpie or prioritizing denaturalization to strip some Americans of their U.S. citizenship through civil litigation. 

Welcome to making America great again, Granny. 

Pam Bloom lives in Salisbury.