America's Middle Class has made and continues to be an immeasurable contribution.
Immigrants have long been responsible for many businesses we launch, patents we file, and billions we add to GDP. Economists produce charts. Politicians cite statistics. Advocates assemble arguments in dollars and cents. But after nearly two decades documenting the stories of immigrants — from factory workers to CEOs, refugees to public servants — I have come to believe that our most valuable contribution cannot be measured on a balance sheet.
Our greatest contribution is something far less quantifiable. It is a belief. A renewed belief in the American experiment.
Immigrants arrive with something many native-born citizens, understandably, no longer possess: perspective. We know what it means to live in a country where your future can be taken from you overnight. Where institutions serve power instead of people. Where dissent carries consequences. We know what it feels like to leave behind everything familiar — not in search of adventure, but in search of dignity.
And when we arrive here, we do not see America as it is. We see it as it could be. We see possibilities where others see inconvenience. Opportunity where others see imperfection. Promise where others see problems.
This is why immigrants open businesses at higher rates. Why we work longer hours. Why we save and sacrifice and push our children forward. Because to us, America is not an abstraction. It is not a birthright. It is a refuge. A second chance.
But belief, like all fragile things, can be broken. And today, something troubling is happening. Across the country, immigrants are being told — directly and indirectly — that they do not belong. That their presence is suspect. That their contributions are conditional. The message may be political or cultural, subtle or overt. But it is heard. And over time, it does something dangerous. It erodes belief. It replaces gratitude with uncertainty. Hope with hesitation. Trust with distance.
This may prove to be the greatest loss of all — not to immigrants, but to America itself. America must strengthen the middle class, which is not our adversary. It is the billionaires and the top one percent — gaining wealth at an unbelievable rate — who are our rivals. Because America has always drawn strength from those who chose it. Not those who inherited it. But those who saw it clearly, from afar, and believed in it anyway.
Every immigrant who arrives brings with them a kind of faith that cannot be manufactured domestically. Faith that America is worth the risk. For generations, that belief has renewed this country from within. And that choice — the decision to believe in America when you have seen the alternatives — is a contribution no economic model can calculate.
It exists in the quiet sacrifices of parents. In the ambitions of their children. In the enduring conviction that this country, imperfect as it may be, is still worthy of hope.
Immigrants help sustain America's belief in itself. And that belief may be the most valuable contribution of all.