Editorial: Land of Opportunity Turns Into Land of Shock Gloves & Prisons

Lisa was born in Taiwan in 1969 before moving to the U.S. as a toddler, arriving in New York City. Lip-Bu was born in what was then the Federation of Malaysia, but would go on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sanjay was born in India, but would later study electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California-Berkeley.

Keep these three stories in mind as you continue to learn about how our nation’s leaders are so eager to equip federal immigration agents with electric shock gloves, cancel visas that had protected people fleeing from danger, scare immigrants at airports, overlook the occasional shooting and killing of people with ostensibly no criminal record on their way to or from work, and scapegoat all kinds of people — the Chinese, Muslims, Haitians, Somalis — for the country’s largely imagined ills. For those three stories and many more are the stories of immigrants who lead some of the most important companies in America.

Lisa Su runs Advanced Micro Devices. Lip-Bu Tan runs Intel. Sanjay Mehrotra runs Micron. They are joined by the likes of Jensen Huang of Nvidia, which has given the U.S. a dramatic edge on semiconductor technology. They are also joined by people like Pichai Sundararajan of Alphabet, commonly still known by many as Google; Tony Xu of DoorDash and Arvind Krishna of IBM.

To be clear, we’re not endorsing these people, the companies they lead, or their politics, whatever they might be. We’re also not endorsing the myopic argument of barely cracking open the nation’s door for only the “exceptional.” But we are asking: How can one reconcile the goal of a prosperous United States of America with the goal of rounding up, detaining, deporting and, we believe, traumatizing and terrorizing millions of immigrants and their families?

Will future powerhouse CEOs or their parents decide they want to brave the risks of an America that gives federal agents the ability to grab and shock into painful submission those it decides to detain and deport for whatever reason? Will they want to study at a university where they could be locked up for months on end because they made the mistake of penning an op-ed in a college newspaper or where they could suddenly find their visa revoked at random? Will they take an offer of temporary protected status only to know it could be wiped away at the whim of a new administration? Will they want to chance an immigration system that has always been flawed but whose enforcement appears to grow more arbitrary and cruel by the day?

And it’s not just future CEOs. It’s the masses of immigrants who have contributed in big and small ways, and whose offspring could find the next cure for a disease, lead one of our cities, discover a technological breakthrough, pen the next great piece of literature, or become a civil rights leader. Just in this issue of Sampan, we learn the stories of the families of Chinese immigrants who ran laundries decades ago and how they survived. We learn of the scientists steadily working on new technological advances and who are celebrating the 30 year anniversary of their networking group. We read of a martial artist great who inspired and taught countless others in defensive arts like tai chi and wushu. We read of an author, who also runs a nonprofit for people with disabilities, and who shares insights in to trauma and mental illness. What kind of place would this nation be without immigrants, who for many Americans are also their mothers, fathers, classmates, neighbors, coworkers, doctors and friends?

Lisa was born in Taiwan in 1969 before moving to the U.S. as a toddler, arriving in New York City. Lip-Bu was born in what was then the Federation of Malaysia, but would go on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sanjay was born in India, but would later study electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California-Berkeley.

Keep these three stories in mind as you continue to learn about how our nation’s leaders are so eager to equip federal immigration agents with electric shock gloves, cancel visas that had protected people fleeing from danger, scare immigrants at airports, overlook the occasional shooting and killing of innocent people on their way to or from work, and scapegoat all kinds of people — the Chinese, Muslims, Haitians, Somalis — for the country’s largely imagined ills. For those three stories and many more are the stories of immigrants who lead some of the most important companies in America.

Lisa Su runs Advanced Micro Devices. Lip-Bu Tan runs Intel. Sanjay Mehrotra runs Micron. They are joined by the likes of Jensen Huang of Nvidia, which has given the U.S. a dramatic edge on semiconductor technology. They are also joined by people like Pichai Sundararajan of Alphabet, commonly still known by many as Google; Tony Xu of DoorDash and Arvind Krishna of IBM.

To be clear, we’re not endorsing these people, the companies they lead, or their politics, whatever they might be. We’re also not endorsing the myopic argument of barely cracking open the nation’s door for only the “exceptional.” But we are asking: How can one reconcile the goal of a prosperous United States of America with the goal of rounding up, detaining, deporting and, we believe, traumatizing and terrorizing millions of immigrants and their families?

Will future powerhouse CEOs or their parents decide they want to brave the risks of an America that gives federal agents the ability to grab and shock into painful submission those it decides to detain and deport for whatever reason? Will they want to study at a university where they could be locked up for months on end because they made the mistake of penning an op-ed in a college newspaper or where they could suddenly find their visa revoked at random? Will they take an offer of temporary protected status only to know it could be wiped away at the whim of a new administration? Will they want to chance an immigration system that has always been flawed but whose enforcement appears to grow more arbitrary and cruel by the day?

And it’s not just future CEOs. It’s the masses of immigrants who have contributed in big and small ways, and whose offspring could find the next cure for a disease, lead one of our cities, discover a technological breakthrough, pen the next great piece of literature, or become a civil rights leader. Just in this issue of Sampan, we learn the stories of the families of Chinese immigrants who ran laundries decades ago and how they survived. We learn of the scientists steadily working on new technological advances and who are celebrating the 30 year anniversary of their networking group. We read of a martial artist great who inspired and taught countless others in defensive arts like tai chi and wushu. We read of an author, who also runs a nonprofit for people with disabilities, and who shares insights in to trauma and mental illness. What kind of place would this nation be without immigrants, who for many Americans are also their mothers, fathers, classmates, neighbors, coworkers, doctors and friends?

Editor's note: A clarifying revision and correction was made to the second paragraph of this editorial after it went to press.