Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Opinion columnist

SAN DIEGO — On immigration, Donald Trump — who always tells people how smart he is — has been, well, not smart. Just because you’re passionate about a topic doesn’t mean you understand it. Trump should heed the old saying: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

Recently, when he set out to fix the one part of our immigration system that isn’t really broken — the process for admitting legal immigrants — Trump removed all doubt.

"We want immigrants coming in; we cherish the open door," Trump said on May 16. "But a big proportion of those immigrants must come in through merit and skill."

If you’re a Mexican-American columnist who writes about immigration, thick skin is a job requirement.

A lot to be offended about

I don’t offend easily. Although Trump has given it his best shot since he entered the political arena and decided the way to get elected — and be popular with his base — was to snuggle up to bigots who fear that the United States is being overrun by Mexicans.

I bristled when Trump likened Mexican immigrants to criminals, including my grandfather who came to the United States as a boy during the Mexican Revolution. I didn’t like it when Trump glibly said that Mexico doesn’t send its “best” immigrants north. And I was disappointed when he suggested that a Mexican-American federal judge who was born in the United States couldn’t be objective because he was “Mexican.”

All those things pushed my buttons. Readers have long accused me of having divided loyalties. The general theme seems to be that I write "like a Mexican" when I need to write like an American. Just a few days ago, Thomas Folgert of Cambridge, New York, observed: “You’re one Mexican American who has what appears to be a primary loyalty to Mexico.”

Yet, oddly enough, I really didn’t get offended until Trump took aim at the “American” side by proposing an immigration plan that would be an affront to some of the greatest traditions of this country.

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What really turns my stomach is Trump's insistence that America would be better off if it were run like a selective country club that admits only well-educated and highly skilled immigrants. We’ve never done that before with any other ethnic group — not the Germans, Irish, Chinese, Italians, Armenians, Greeks or Jews. And there’s a reason for that.

That's not the point of America — or its genius.

That’s how Mexico rolls. It’s my grandfather’s country that plays favorites and divides its own population into winners and losers, based on social class, education level or skin color. It’s no wonder that Mexico has long been split into three parts: a relatively small number of rich people, a large number of poor people and, in between, a sliver of a middle class. For the most part, you’re stuck in the socioeconomic station into which you were born.

My grandfather was poor and dark-skinned, and had a sixth-grade education. About a hundred years ago, Mexico spit him out like a mouthful of bad salsa. He came to the United States with his family legally, before one could come illegally — which is to say before the Immigration Act of 1924.

Paying the American dream forward

Though my grandfather didn’t have much formal education, and would have been considered low-skilled by today’s standards, America took him in. And for the rest of his life, he tried to pay her back — by working nonstop at field work and other jobs Americans wouldn’t do, raising five boys to be productive and law-abiding and sending four of them (including my father) to serve in the military, paying taxes and otherwise contributing to society. My grandfather was always clear about where his loyalty lay. It wasn’t south of the border.

In a parallel universe, this story might have gone differently. My grandfather could have been born into a wealthy family in Mexico, educated at an expensive private school and become an engineer. In that scenario, Mexico would have likely wanted to keep him for herself. But in the event that he decided to migrate to another country, he would have had his pick. He could have gone to the United States or to Canada, Japan, or Great Britain. With so many suitors, he might have become arrogant and developed a sense of entitlement. And, if he had chosen the United States, he might have thought he did the Americans a favor — instead of the other way around.

That’s not the American way. Our country breeds loyalty and devotion because it’s the land of second chances. This is the place where you head when Plan A doesn’t work out. T’was always thus.

Education isn't everything

Trump can’t seem to grasp this. He thinks we don’t get the “best” immigrants because the folks clamoring to get in didn’t have high SAT scores or Ivy Leagues degrees.

Nonsense. Of course we get the best. We get the dreamers, the optimists, the risk takers, the hard workers. A century and a half ago,do you think the best of Ireland stayed in Ireland?

Let me make this simple. My Mexican grandfather had a sixth-grade education and a fierce work ethic; I had high SAT scores, and I now have a pair of Ivy League degrees. He had calloused hands, chronic back pain and plenty of humility; I have soft hands, a healthy ego and a touch of entitlement. He defined success not by how much he was paid but by having enough work; I define it by being paid a lot to work less. Now who has more “merit”?

If America foolishly created an immigration scheme that would welcome me but leave my grandfather behind, then she would be badly shortchanged — and deservedly so.

There, now you know more about immigration than a president who can’t stop talking about it.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group and host of the daily podcast “Navarrette Nation.” Follow him on Twitter: @RubenNavarrette