Trump will never understand the power and energy immigrants bring to America, or just how great they make it

Their stories slip out slowly, over time.

You pick up a snippet here, a detail there. Gradually, if you choose to, you learn about their lives, how they came here, their struggles, their gratitude to the nation they now call home. Their sheer industry.

There’s the father-and-son team originally from Kandahar, who leave their home in the outer boroughs every morning, long before it gets light, to sell coffee and bagels from a tiny cart. In winter, they swathe their heads and faces in scarves and stamp their feet. In the long, humid summer, they try to keep cool, squeezed together inside that metal shell. They never miss a day.

The father came to the US in 1989, the same year the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving its communist client government in Kabul to fend for itself against the mujahideen. It was a time of great uncertainty and violence.

Then there is the woman from Queens who cleans for families across the length and breadth of New York City. Originally from Colombia, after more than two decades she is now a US citizen. But in the months after Donald Trump’s election victory, she found herself, for the first time in many years, on the receiving end of racist abuse from strangers on the bus.

There is a man from El Salvador. He used to teach history and English and is utterly fluent. Now in the US, he works as a receptionist where he swabs the floor and directs food deliveries. He also has a second job refereeing basketball games. Unlike many thousands from his country who came here to escape violence during and after the bitter civil war, this man came for love. He beams when he pulls out his phone and reveals a photograph of his youngest child.

open image in gallery

If he could spare time away from his golf courses, Trump would do well meet these fellow New Yorkers and hear their stories. He would benefit from the experience.

The President seems to think immigrants have little value, except as a means of agitating his political base. Like the Mexican “rapists” he infamously talked about when he launched his bid for the White House, during his campaign Trump used the false spectre of uncontrolled immigration taking away the jobs of American citizens, upturning their culture and committing terrible crimes.

In truth, repeated studies show that immigrants to the US contribute hugely, both socially and economically. In 2013, immigrants added $1.6 trillion to the total GPD. Economists have found immigrants actually increase the standard of living of all Americans.

In local communities, from Nebraska to South Carolina, immigrants create demand for small businesses and strengthen the economy. Immigrant entrepreneurs have played a significant role in advancing technological innovation, as Silicon Valley CEOs have repeatedly told Trump.

The immigrants Trump punched in the stomach yesterday were the so-called dreamers, up to 800,000 young people who live here legally as a result of a scheme introduced by Barack Obama to protect the children of undocumented parents from deportation. Trump has scrapped the plan and given congress six months to come up with an alternative, or else these young people will face deportation.

Under Obama’s lifeline, these youngsters have studied, gotten jobs and paid taxes. More than 91 per cent are in employment. Putting aside the impact on these young people, many of whose parents escaped desperate situations, a study by the Centre for American Progress suggested losing these dreamers would cost the economy $433bn over the next 10 years.

America is famously a nation of immigrants, immigrants who come in waves – English, Irish, Poles, Italians. They all but destroyed the indigenous Americans who lived here, but established lives for themselves.

In the late 19th Century, many from central Europe made their way to the New World. Among them, in 1885, was Friedrich Trumpf, one of Trump’s grandfathers. Reports suggest he did not speak English, but worked hard to build a life for himself, moved to the west coast, ran restaurants and then returned to New York where married Trump’s grandmother.

It is these waves of immigrants who have constantly turned the wheels of America’s economy. As Trump’s grandfather worked to find his place in the world, so now are people from Afghanistan, Colombia and El Salvador.

So too are the people from Central America, no more so these young people who were encouraged to dream. Most Americans – polls suggest anywhere up to 75 per cent support the dreamers being here – are sympathetic to their cause.

Trump claimed making the decision has troubled him deeply. Earlier this year, he said in relation to the dreamers: “We’re going to show great heart.”

Yet simply for the sake of placating the most extreme instincts of his political base, Trump has turned his back on those he could so easily have helped.

Great heart? Dream on.