President Obama on Tuesday used a naturalization ceremony in Washington, D.C., to take a veiled shot at those calling for tighter rules for accepting Syrian refugees by saying Americans must resist the temptation to violate the country’s founding documents.
In a National Archives ceremony welcoming 31 naturalized Americans, Obama didn’t specifically name any Republican, including GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigrants.
But Obama said the U.S. should never repeat its past mistakes, when it discriminated against immigrants from various countries.
“We should be strong enough to acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that we haven’t always lived up to our own ideals. We haven’t always lived up to these documents,” he said in the building that’s home to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
Obama cited not only the history of black slaves who were brought to the U.S. against their will, but also the discrimination faced by the Irish, Catholics, Asians and many others.
“We succumbed to fear. We betrayed not only our fellow Americans, but our deepest values,” he said. “We betrayed these documents. It’s happened before.”
“And the biggest irony … was that those who betrayed these values were themselves the children of immigrants. How quickly we forget,” he said. “And we suggest that somehow there is us and there is them, not remembering we used to be them.”
“On days like today, we need to resolve never to repeat mistakes like that again,” he said to applause.
“We must resolve to always speak out against hatred and bigotry in all its forms, whether taunts against the child of an immigrant farm worker, or threats against a Muslim shopkeeper,” he said. “We are Americans.”
Republicans have said they support legal immigration, but oppose Obama’s effort to encourage illegal immigration, in part by issuing executive actions allowing illegal immigrants to stay and work. Many Republicans have also warned that the U.S. needs to more carefully screen the 10,000 Syrian refugees Obama wants to take in, to ensure none are terrorist threats.
But Obama and other Democrats have criticized Republicans as anti-immigration, and Obama on Tuesday said accepting immigrants is an American tradition.
“We don’t simply welcome new immigrants, we don’t simply welcome new arrivals, we are born of immigrants. That is who we are,” he said. “Immigration is our origin story.”
“And for more than two centuries, it’s remained at the core of our national character,” he said. “It’s our oldest tradition. It’s who we are. It’s part of what makes us exceptional.”
