A so-so June jobs report dropped this morning, with the U.S. economy adding 57,000 non-farm jobs last month—about half as many as economists had expected. What’s more, April and May’s job reports were revised down a combined 74,000 jobs. The unemployment rate, however, ticked down from 4.3 percent to 4.2 percent. Basically, bleh.

In other news, Folarin Balogun did nothing wrong and he must be freed to help the U.S. men’s national team destroy Belgium. Can’t Donald Trump, recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize, give us an executive order here or something? What’s the point of a president who runs the government like a mob boss when he won’t come through when it really matters? Happy Thursday.

And no newsletter tomorrow: Happy Fourth of July.

Our Nation, Richly Rewarded

by William Kristol

When we read the Declaration of Independence this July 4th weekend, we’ll surely focus on its second paragraph, with its famous beginning:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As the philosopher Leo Strauss put it, “[This] passage has been frequently quoted, but, by its weight and its elevation, it is made immune to the degrading effects of the excessive familiarity which breeds contempt and of misuse which breeds disgust.” And so that passage, and the rest of the paragraph that develops its implications, are very much worth dwelling on.

But we might also take a minute to look at what follows that paragraph—the list of the charges against King George III that are “submitted to a candid world” to justify the revolution. Many of them have particular resonance in our current circumstances. One is that:

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither. . . .

The Declaration is in favor of “the naturalization of foreigners” and “their migration hither.” It is pro-immigration.

The Trump administration is not, to say the least, pro-immigration. It’s pro-mass deportation. Its nativists even toy with dreams of “de-naturalization” and “remigration.”

And so it’s fitting that in the run-up to July 4th, the Trump administration has launched a new anti-immigration push. This crackdown doesn’t target criminals or those who are somehow burdens on the nation. It’s about hitting numbers. As the New York Times reports, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials “were told that the White House wanted an increase in arrests . . . ICE officials had been told that 2,000 arrests a day was the new standard for enforcement.” And so ICE agents have detained more than 10,000 people in the last five days, arresting people “at check-ins with immigration authorities, during traffic stops and on the street.”

The forcible deportation of peaceful and law-abiding residents who have chosen to come and live here is the July 4th priority of the Trump administration. It makes sense. Mass deportation is key to its policy agenda and vision of America: A walled fortress with gates locked, the drawbridge up, and masked agents scouring our neighborhoods to forcibly expel outsiders—especially those who in some way look or sound different from what “heritage Americans” imagine Americans should look and sound like.

This, sadly, is America at 250.

It was not always so.

Fifty years ago, on the occasion of our bicentennial, President Gerald Ford made it a point to travel on July 5th to Thomas Jefferson’s home in Monticello to speak at a naturalization ceremony. His remarks are worth quoting at some length:

I am very proud to welcome all of you as fellow citizens of the United States of America. I invite you to join fully in the American adventure and to share our common goal and our common glory. . . . You have given us a birthday present beyond price—yourselves, your faith, your loyalty, and your love. We thank you with full and friendly hearts.

The patriots of 1776 . . . wanted to build in this beautiful land a home for equal freedom and opportunity, a haven of safety and happiness, not for themselves alone, but for all who would come to us through centuries. How well they built is told by millions upon millions who came and are still coming.

Immigrants came from almost everywhere, singly and in waves. . . . Such transfusions of traditions and cultures, as well as of blood, have made America unique among nations and Americans a new kind of people. . . . We offered citizenship to all, and we have been richly rewarded.

Ford celebrated America as a land of immigrants. He didn’t merely respond to nativist attacks. He wasn’t defensive. He made the case for immigration. He argued that we were “richly rewarded” for being a nation of immigrants. And so, addressing the new American citizens, Ford said:

You came as strangers among us and you leave here as citizens, equal in fundamental rights, equal before the law, with an equal share in the promise of the future. . . . We have gained far, far more than we have given to the millions who made America their second homeland.

Thirteen years later, on January 19, 1989, the man whom Ford defeated in 1976 for the Republican nomination for president, Ronald Reagan, gave his last public address as president. In it, he discussed what he saw as “one of the most important sources of America’s greatness”:

We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.

It is bold men and women, yearning for freedom and opportunity, who leave their homelands and come to a new country to start their lives over. They believe in the American dream. And over and over, they make it come true for themselves, for their children, and for others. They give more than they receive. . . . But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American.

This July 4th, I for one will try to put our current administration (at least briefly!) out of mind. I’ll remind myself that we have done better, that we can be better, and that we surely will do better again.