The United States needs immigrants to support its economy and to sustain our way of life. As the baby boom generation heads into retirement, immigrants and their children were expected to offset a decline in the working-age population by adding about 18 million people of working age between 2015 and 2035.

With a median age of 45.1 years, Maine is the oldest state in the U.S. Gov. Janet Mills recently acknowledged the state’s economic growth remains well short of Maine’s goal of adding 75,000 new workers by the end of this decade. Joe Biden’s executive order limiting the number of immigrants who can apply for asylum is a drastic reversal for a candidate who campaigned on promises to rebuild the asylum system and adopt more humane immigration practices than his predecessor.

While the president has not separated asylum-seeking parents from their children, as did Donald Trump, and Biden has slowly restored some of the long-standing pathways to immigration that Trump eliminated, the new executive order revokes the country’s historic promise that anyone who sets foot on U.S. soil can ask for refuge.

The United States has been a long-standing beacon of hope for those fleeing persecution, violence and oppression. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) observed the executive order undermines our nation’s legacy. She added the new policy “is a betrayal of the principle upon which this nation was built (and) it flies in the face of basic morality.” The executive order also flies in the face of Maine’s basic economic needs.

James M. Moore, Esq.
Bangor