This last week was my father’s 6th Yahrzeit. And while I generally and genuinely miss my dad, I have been thinking of him as of late amidst the cruel and baseless Republican ant-Immigrant rhetoric. In the presidential debate in response to a question about the economy, Trump repeated his lie about “millions of people pouring into our country from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums.” They’re not. 

Trump claimed that “we have a new form of crime. It’s called migrant crime. And it’s happening at levels that nobody thought possible.” Never mind that violent crime across the board is down, but decades of studies have reached the same conclusion: Undocumented immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crime than people born in the United States. And then there was a new low. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — eating the pets of the people that live there.”

My father continued the family tradition of advocacy for immigrants begun by his parents, Abram and Lena, who were also immigration lawyers.  James was born and raised in Philadelphia, and he graduated with honors from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a bachelor degree in Economics. He went on to attend Harvard Law School where he found his voice as an advocate and legal practitioner.  Following law school, he served as a Judge Advocate in the U.S. Navy and then the U.S. Naval Reserve. James began practicing immigration law exclusively in 1965 until his death. He maintained the Orlow family immigration practice throughout his career. Along with his parents he provided immigration and citizenship legal services to individuals, corporations and their counsel since its original founding in 1928. The Orlow family has distinguished itself as a significant force in the legal community and the shaping of immigration law in the United States for nearly a century.

In so many ways my father tried to live out the directive we learn in the Torah, “You shall have one standard for stranger and citizen alike: for I the Lord am your God.” (Leviticus 24:22). We are instructed to have one rule of law for everyone, not one for citizens and a different one for immigrants. But, why is this connected to ” I the Lord am your God”. There Rashi clarifies, “— your God — the God of all of you. Just as I attach My Name to you, so do I attach it to the strangers.” Everyone, be it a citizen or a stranger, has been created in the image of God and is born with rights.

Trump bombastic efforts to incense and distract is insulting. It is insulting to us as people who want to hear serious candidates address serious issues. It is insulting to any of us who believe in a God. How could you make these claims against these Haitian immigrants and not understand that you are inciting violence against them? And looking back on my family legacy in immigration law, it is insulting to my father’s memory. We are better than this. We are not going back to this.