Today’s Illegal Migrants are the New Early Europeans

History has a tendency to repeat itself. New people, different places but generally the same concept.

America in its youth held promise, attracting waves of Irish immigrants desperate to escape the Great Famine of 1845-1852 and improve their quality of life. Uncouth and unsophisticated, they arrived in droves on ships at New York and Boston ports.

Early Americans scoffed at the Irish for being uneducated but the latter persisted, taking low-paying jobs, like laborers. Eventually the Irish immigrants produced the country’s 35th president, John F. Kennedy.

The country’s first Irish population wasn’t perfect. Due to the famine, most were sick, destitute and unskilled. But they summoned their resilience and contributed to the growth of the new nation. Early Americans scoffed at the Irish for being uneducated but the latter persisted, taking low-paying jobs, like laborers. Eventually the Irish immigrants produced the country’s 35th president, John F. Kennedy.

Likewise, Italy sent ships of its countrymen and women to the shores of the newfound land of promise. The Italians sought to escape limited economic opportunities, crime and political turmoil. Along with notable artists and musicians came disreputable Italians who brought their mobster mentality from across the Atlantic.

America contended with some of their worst, like Al Capone and other mafia goons. The Valentine’s Day Massacre now has its own exhibit, complete with a portion of the blood-stained brick wall against which the notorious mobster ordered seven people be riddled with bullets, in The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. Though most Italian immigrants were law-abiding citizens, Capone’s criminal antics compelled Americans to associate all Italians with violent crime.

No nation on Earth houses a perfect population. Norway is close, but it, too, has its share of poverty, domestic violence and other social ills. In short, utopia does not exist on Earth.

The majority of illegal migrants who cross from the south seek economic opportunities, a better quality of life and a fresh start—exactly as did the 1800s Irish and Italian immigrants.

Mexico is no different. Yet, it is also a country not to be dismissed. The Aztecs and Mayans, modern-day Mexico’s ancient occupants, built their empires, complete with sophisticated roads, using stone tools. Mayan elites perfected their knowledge of astronomy and developed the highly precise Mayan calendar in 1000 B.C.E.

Yesteryear shows today’s illegal immigrant crisis is no different.

The majority of illegal migrants who cross from the south seek economic opportunities, a better quality of life and a fresh start—exactly as did the 1800s Irish and Italian immigrants.

At the same time, a minority of undocumented immigrants from beyond the border bring their drug cartel mentality—a reverberating echo of the Italian mafias of Al Capone’s time.

The few illegal immigrants with criminal tendencies create a negative perception of the whole migrant population. The anti-immigrant sentiment that results is bolstered when the illegal criminals are convicted, released due to overcrowded jails and resume their violent rampages on their next victims, who happen to be legal citizens in physical proximity.

The similarities between what drove the millions of early European immigrants to seek new lives in America and what compels the over half a million Mexican illegals to cross the southern border annually are uncanny.

America defeated Al Capone and most of the later mafia generations. But it did not build a giant wall rising from the Atlantic Ocean barring all Italians from crossing into US ports.

Italians successfully integrated, like the Irish, into the fabric of American society.

These and other Europeans as well as immigrants from other continents around the world contributed and still contribute significantly to the growth of the US economy and its worldwide reputation.

Today the US is still largely seen as the land of opportunity and should rightly be grateful that populations around the globe are eager to make a new life in the melting pot.

But as history shows, along with talent, ambition and desire for a better life come disrespect for laws and crime. As they say, the good comes with the bad. It’s hard for a country trying to protect itself to legitimately filter out all criminals without offending well-meaning individuals in the process.

The violence committed by illegal migrants is the chief driver stirring US citizens’ animosity against everyone who crosses from south of the border.

It’s critical to avoid repeating past mistakes, like 1850s Americans discriminating against Irish immigrants for their lack of skills and early Italians for the mafia crimes committed by the few. The majority of Irish and Italians have contributed significantly to America’s prosperity ever since setting foot on its soil.

Partially built 18-foot walls, flurries of unwarranted arrests and all-around vilification of an entire population fail to bring long-lasting solutions.

Since America prevailed over its Prohibition Era mafia crisis, it has the ability to weather the current illegal migrant crisis and its associated crime without indiscriminately opposing all Mexican immigrants.

In time the US will triumph, as it has in the past, and the integration of today’s law-abiding immigrants who lend valuable skills, a willingness work and a drive to achieve quality of life will be America’s modern-day source of prosperity.