In the midst of this holiday season, as we rush out to buy those last minute presents, it is time to really take stock of what is important in our lives and which gifts are the most meaningful.  No matter what our ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds, we can all agree that family, health, friendship and love are the most wanted and most treasured of gifts. However, in this season of warmth and good spirits, the specter of the ghosts of hate has once again interjected itself into the Christmas and holiday season and caused us to lose sight of what is also important: our immigrant community and the gifts that they bring to our country.   In New York, for the second time in less than a month, an Ecuadorian immigrant was savagely attacked solely because of his immigrant background. Jose Sucuzhanay and his brother, Romel, were assaulted in Brooklyn by three men who shouted anti-Hispanic and anti-gay slurs and beat them with a bottle and a baseball bat. Jose was declared brain dead but Romel survived. This follows the death of the first immigrant, Marcelo Lucero.

In a recent article in New York Magazine entitled:” Hiding in Plain Sight”, author Jeff Coplan describes the plight of one New York immigrant family after the death of Marcelo Lucero, stating: “For an undocumented family, life in a sanctuary city is feeling less safe all the time”. The article describes one family’s daily fight for economic survival, made even more difficult not only because of their lack of immigration status but also because of both the economy and the increased anti-immigration fever. Alfredo, the father of the family portrayed in this article, notes that in an undocumented family an important lesson is passed from father to son: “You don’t feel you have the right to fight back.”

Author Coplan points out the obvious—the critical contributions that undocumented immigrants make to our struggling economy. He states: “The country’s 12 million undocumented immigrants underpin agribusiness and homebuilding. They pay an estimated $7 billion in annual payroll taxes—with no prospect of any return-to the Social Security Trust Fund. Locally, they represent 10 percent of the resident labor force and the backbone of the low-skilled service sector--, more than half of New York's dishwashers, close to a third of its cooks and maids and construction workers, a fifth of its janitors.”

The contribution s of legal immigrants to the U.S. is equally overwhelming. In his book the “World is Flat”, author Thomas Friedman points out that:

Research conducted by the National Foundation for American Policy shows that 60 percent of the nation’s top science students and 65 percent of the top mathematics students are children of recent immigrant, according to an analysis of award winners in three scholastic competitions…the Intel Science Talent Search, the U.S. team for the International Mathematical Olympiad, and the U.S. Physics Team. The study’s author attributed the immigrant students’ success ‘partly to their parents' insistence that they manage time wisely…Many immigrants parents also encouraged their children to pursue mathematics and science interests, believing those skills would lead to strong career opportunities and insulate them from bias and lack of connections in the workplace…A strong percentage of the students surveyed had parents who arrived in the United States on H-1B visas. U.S. Policymakers who back overly restrictive immigration policies do so at the risk of cutting off a steady infusion of technological and scientific skill”.

Thus, as we complete our holiday shopping this season let us also remember and give thanks to this country’s greatest gifts: our immigrants and the gifts they bring to our country. Happy Holidays!