CAMBRIDGE – The United States
is a nation of immigrants. Except for a small number of Native
Americans, everyone is originally from somewhere else, and even recent
immigrants can rise to top economic and political roles. President
Franklin Roosevelt once famously addressed the Daughters of the American
Revolution – a group that prided itself on the early arrival of its
ancestors – as “fellow immigrants.”
In
recent years, however, US politics has had a strong anti-immigration
slant, and the issue played an important role in the Republican Party’s
presidential nomination battle in 2012. But Barack Obama’s re-election
demonstrated the electoral power of Latino voters, who rejected
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney by a 3-1 majority, as did
Asian-Americans.
As
a result, several prominent Republican politicians are now urging their
party to reconsider its anti-immigration policies, and plans for
immigration reform will be on the agenda at the beginning of Obama’s
second term. Successful reform will be an important step in preventing
the decline of American power.
