Tucker Carlson’s intemperate blast at immigrants brings to mind an argument I have heard from others who share the Fox News talking head’s view.

Carlson had the bad form to say on the air the other day that immigrants make the country “dirtier” and “more divided.” Advertisers have been pulling out from Fox News sponsorships as a result of Carlson’s intemperate remarks.

However, he seems to speak on behalf of an alarming number of Americans who want the country to stiffen the standards for entry to all immigrants who seek to come to the Land of Opportunity.

I have sought to argue that it is patently un-American to slam the door shut on those who want in. The Statue of Liberty still invites the rest of the world to send us the dispossessed, those who “yearn to breathe free.” Yes, the president wants to build a wall along our southern border to stem what he describes as an illegal immigration “crisis.” I am not yet convinced that the “crisis” that Donald Trump alleges is any more severe now than it has ever been.

Then we hear from the likes of Tucker Carlson, who has a cable TV forum to spout the nonsense seemingly about all immigration.

I stand proudly as the grandson of Greek immigrants. Not a single one of them made this country “dirtier,” nor did they seek to “divide” themselves from the rest of the society they sought to join. They all became U.S. citizens. My maternal grandfather did so by enlisting in the U.S. Army in his quest to get into the fight in the waning days of World War I. His wife, my Yiayia, became a fervent U.S. patriot who idolized Presidents Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

To be sure, my grandparents weren’t the only immigrants who found a better life. They weren’t alone in their quest for opportunity. They were among millions of others from throughout the world who sought and found their proverbial end-of-rainbow treasure.

Do these xenophobes actually seek to deny other immigrants the opportunity to become Americans by choice? How can they say the things they say, make arguments that Tucker Carlson echoed the other day, that immigrants make dirty the nation that traditionally has kept the light on for those seeking entry?

I will not tolerate that kind of bigotry. Nor should anyone else.

Immigrants built this nation. They continue to improve on what our forebears erected.

They are dirty? They divide the nation? Ridiculous.