America is a country made of the world
Stop being defensive about immigration
We shouldn't be having a defensive conversation about immigration that starts with the story of border chaos or make-believe ideas about what migrants are doing.
We should have our own conversation from first principles: This is an extraordinary country. It's extraordinary for many reasons. Among the reasons it is extraordinary: it is a country built of the world, from the world, from every part of the world.
I have had the fortune, as a journalist, as a foreign correspondent, to visit dozens of countries. And I've enjoyed all these countries I've been to, but I've actually never been to any other country that truly aspired to be a country made of the world.
When you're in France — there are immigrants in France, but it is not like the United States. It is not a country made of the world. It is a country centered on Frenchness.
A lot of countries in the world — people may not know this — don't even have birthright citizenship. If you live there, if you're born there, even if your parents are from there, you still don't necessarily become a citizen.
Eric Liu, a friend of mine, a Chinese-American, wrote in a memoir called A Chinaman's Chance about how his family's been in China thousands and thousands of years. His parents left, came to America. He said if he wanted to go back and become Chinese, he couldn't. 5,000 years of loyal living in China, one or two generations in the United States.
Becoming Chinese is not a thing. Becoming Indian is not a thing. Becoming American is something that we do to a million people every year. We've done it under Republicans, under Democrats.
My family came here 47 years ago. I think we've had a pretty good run of contribution to this country — perhaps except my own.
So I think we need to not just react to Whac-A-Mole crises ginned up by fascists, but actually own this notion that our blood is better with the blood of many people in it. Our country is better when more people are here.
We have built everything we can because we have every kind of idea, every kind of contribution mixing together, and people who don't have a heart, people who are miserly, or people who are cynically trying to raise money off of hatred don't belong in the American story.
The above was adapted from my remarks on Morning Joe earlier today. The full clip is here.