Death to America?

This week, Iranians were in the streets demonstrating again. These crowds weren’t protesting the current regime but celebrating the 47th year of the Iranian revolution, when the Shah was deposed and a religious Supreme Leader ascended to political dominance. Demonstrators chanted the old phrase “Death to America!”

This chant may not be a wish for my death and that of my fellow Americans, but I suspect it is for some Iranians—if they are like us. Americans, after all, have tended to vilify countries and their citizens to the extent that we are willing to blow them out of the water on unsubstantiated suspicions that they are involved in supplying our demand for illegal substances.

Our slogan might be more like “Death to the foreigners!” We claim that they are ruining us. We root them out of our midst. We put them in holding tanks, sometimes failing to provide critical health care, until we can dispose of them. Sometimes they die in our “care.”

Some of our foreigners have been good neighbors. And their neighbors appreciate them enough to contest their seizure. Some of these neighbors have been killed for protesting. Our regime says loudly, “They were internal terrorists!” The Iranian regime says much the same (in Farsi) about protesters in Tehran.

It turns out that our undocumented immigrants are not a threat and not a financial drain. Anyone who knows some of them could have told you that, and the statistics bear it out. They have lower crime rates than the rest of our populace. They pay far more in taxes and by boosting our economy than they cost us in accommodating them.

Many immigrants serve in health care, helping to keep us alive and well. So keeping them out is detrimental to our health. We senior citizens make up 19% of the U.S. population, but account for 40% of health care costs. Old age has its effect, and I am now at higher risk than I was a young buck. I’d kinda like to have someone to take care of me if I need it.

One economist calculates that deporting a million immigrants a year (Stephen Miller’s goal) will result in an additional 15,000 deaths per year. So, while Iranians chant “Death to America,” our own administration is actually delivering death to Americans.