Faith, Facts, and the Fabric of America: Miguel Santana, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, and David Leonhardt on the Moral and Economic Stakes of Immigration
JUDJ-Prepared Summary from October 9, 2025 | Raid, Rights and Reckonings: America’s Immigration Crossroads. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the speaker.
In a recent America at a Crossroads discussion, Miguel Santana (President & CEO, California Community Foundation), Rabbi Jill Jacobs (CEO of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights), and David Leonhardt (Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and editorial director at The New York Times) examined how the current immigration moment tests America’s values, economy, and civic character. Drawing on lived experience, moral tradition, and data, the conversation asked a defining question: What does our treatment of immigrants reveal about who we are—and who we aspire to be?
A Nation at a Crossroads
The panel opened with a reality check. The United States has long been both refuge and battleground, a country shaped by newcomers and by recurring backlashes to them. Today’s crackdown has revived old fears with new tactics—mask-clad raids, sweeping detentions, and widening racial profiling—raising core concerns about due process, equal protection, and civic norms. Beyond policy details, the stakes are ethical and constitutional.
Miguel Santana: Fear, Families, and the Fraying of Civil Society
Speaking from Los Angeles—home to one of the nation’s largest undocumented communities—Miguel Santana described a landscape where integration and fear coexist. Many undocumented residents have lived in L.A. for a decade or more, own homes, raise U.S.-born children, and power essential sectors like construction and food service. Yet families now avoid clinics, workplaces, and schools; some carry passports to stave off wrongful detention. Santana underscored the data: most recent detainees have no criminal record. He warned that immigration enforcement is becoming a “laboratory” for broader erosions of civil liberties—normalizing heavy-handed tactics that chill entire communities and undermine trust in public institutions.
David Leonhardt: Ending the ‘Free Lunch’ Myth
David Leonhardt challenged a familiar oversimplification: immigration is neither a universal boon nor a universal harm—it carries tradeoffs. Higher immigration can lift GDP and lower prices, but it can also suppress wages for some lower-income workers. That tension, he argued, fuels populist backlash when elites insist immigration is only upside. The path forward, he said, isn’t cruelty or chaos; it’s balance: humane policies with credible border management, faster asylum decisions, and a candid acknowledgment that economic benefits and costs are real—and unequally distributed.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs: A Moral Imperative Rooted in Tradition
Rabbi Jill Jacobs grounded the conversation in Jewish ethics and historical memory. The Torah’s call to care for the “stranger” isn’t abstract; it demands policies that honor human dignity. She drew painful parallels between today’s rhetoric and past nativist waves—from exclusions of Chinese and Eastern European immigrants to refusals to shelter Jewish refugees. For Jacobs, moral leadership means accompanying immigrants in tangible ways: court support, resettlement networks, and community solidarity. Her message was disarmingly practical: in the face of overwhelm, do something—because small, local actions add up to a culture of care.
A Call to Conscience—and Action
Across perspectives, the panel converged on three imperatives. First, reject misinformation with facts—about crime, taxes, and eligibility for public benefits—so communities can deliberate honestly. Second, pair compassion with competence: credible border policy and timely adjudication alongside clear pathways for long-settled residents and asylum seekers. Third, rebuild civic trust from the ground up—schools, faith communities, philanthropy, and neighbors—so families aren’t navigating fear alone.
The American story has always been about widening the circle of belonging. As Santana, Leonhardt, and Rabbi Jacobs made clear, immigration is not only a policy arena—it is a mirror. What we reflect now will become part of the country our children inherit.
About America at a Crossroads
Since April 2020, America at a Crossroads has produced weekly virtual programs on topics related to the preservation of our democracy, voting rights, freedom of the press, and a wide array of civil rights, including abortion rights, free speech, and free press. America at a Crossroads is a project of Jews United for Democracy & Justice.