Story of an Unwanted Immigrant

You can bet Trump's gang would have kept him out

Immigration always has been controversial. Years ago, a middle-aged German physics professor applied for asylum in the United States, and that idea was bitterly opposed by a lot of good, god-fearing Americans.

The Woman Patriot Organization fought hardest against giving asylum to the man, who was sometimes described as a dowdy old Jew. They thought he was an anarchist or a communist or maybe both. They were an interesting group, the WPO. They were not only against commies, they were also against contraception and even women voting. I imagine they were a lot of fun on the weekends.

J. Edgar Hoover, who infamously ran the FBI for almost half a century, eagerly supported their cause. He also was convinced the would-be immigrant, who admitted to being a socialist, was a subversive and maybe even a Soviet spy. Usually, when Hoover wanted something he got his way. But this time, he was overruled by the State Department, perhaps with the assistance of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The immigrant settled in Princeton, New Jersey and took up a research position at an institution called the Institute for Advanced Study. He became an American citizen, lived quietly and didn’t bother anyone. Still, the FBI’s Hoover was obsessed with him, and tied up FBI resources to do surveillance on him for the rest of the immigrant’s life, even after he became an American citizen.

The immigrant was no Communist, but he did indeed commit one political act. He wrote a letter to President Roosevelt when World War II started in 1939, a letter that in essence said “Sir, the Nazis may be able to build an atom bomb if they want to, and we should think about that.”

And though other physicists pushed him to write the letter, he signed only his name: Albert Einstein.

That letter, and Einstein, may have saved civilization … at least for a time. I doubt if Donald Trump knows that story, or would understand the truth behind it, which is that we are a country of immigrants, and not just blonde blue-eyed white ones, and that’s what has made us great. As of June, there were more than 51 million immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, but here’s what’s sad about that:

In January, there were 53.3 million. For the first time in many decades, more left the country than arrived in the first six months of this year, and I bet you can guess why.

Our anti-immigrant policy is weakening our future, and is the most profoundly anti-American policy I can imagine. Our nation was meant to be open to all. Ronald Reagan used to say you can move to Germany, but you can’t become German.

But anyone could become an American. What bothers me most is that if Einstein were fleeing the Nazis today, I very much doubt that he’d come to this country, and if that’s the case, we should all be ashamed.