Illegal Immigrants, or Play It Again Sam

[gvf]

This issue is a reincarnation of Nativism, been with the country since it's inception. Keeping "THEM" out has a long tradition, as long as the "melting pot" with it s idealism. Many of our ancestors were a "THEM": mine, Irish Catholics, hated 'em, mobs burning out their churches etc., beatings and worse... Germans before, then as we evolved into the 20th century: more subtle forms: with Italians, Poles, and now Mexicans. Likely, you're descended from a "THEM"

So, revile me and my point of view if you must, tell me how unAmerican I am. (Just like THEM). And the Writer of the following? must be an Unspeakable Traitor Leftist. Deport him?

The Founding Immigrants



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By KENNETH C. DAVIS
Published: July 3, 2007

Dorset, Vt.

A PROMINENT American once said, about immigrants, “Few of their children in the country learn English... The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of their importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.”

This sentiment did not emerge from the rancorous debate over the immigration bill defeated last week in the Senate. It was not the lament of some guest of Lou Dobbs or a Republican candidate intent on wooing bedrock conservative votes. Guess again.

Voicing this grievance was Benjamin Franklin. And the language so vexing to him was the German spoken by new arrivals to Pennsylvania in the 1750s, a wave of immigrants whom Franklin viewed as the “most stupid of their nation.”

About the same time, a Lutheran minister named Henry Muhlenberg, himself a recent arrival from Germany, worried that “the whole country is being flooded with ordinary, extraordinary and unprecedented wickedness and crimes. ... Oh, what a fearful thing it is to have so many thousands of unruly and brazen sinners come into this free air and unfenced country.”

These German masses yearning to breathe free were not the only targets of colonial fear and loathing. Echoing the opinions of colonial editors and legislators, Ben Franklin was also troubled by the British practice of dumping its felons on America. With typical Franklin wit, he proposed sending rattlesnakes to Britain in return. (This did not, however, preclude numerous colonists from purchasing these convicts as indentured servants.)

And still earlier in Pennsylvania, the Scotch-Irish had bred discontent, as their penchant for squatting on choice real estate ran headlong against the colony’s founders, the Penn family, and their genteel notions about who should own what.

Often, the disdain for the foreign was inflamed by religion. Boston’s Puritans hanged several Friends after a Bay Colony ban on Quakerism. In Virginia, the Anglicans arrested Baptists.

But the greatest scorn was generally reserved for Catholics — usually meaning Irish, French, Spanish and Italians. Generations of white American Protestants resented newly arriving “Papists,” and even in colonial Maryland, a supposed haven for them, Roman Catholics were nonetheless forbidden to vote and hold public office.

Once independent, the new nation began to carve its views on immigrants into law. In considering New York’s Constitution, for instance, John Jay — later to become the first chief justice of the Supreme Court — suggested erecting “a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics.”

By 1790, with the United States Constitution firmly in place, the first federal citizenship law restricted naturalization to “free white persons” who had been in the country for two years. That requirement was later pushed back to five years and, in 1798, to 14 years.

Then, as now, politics was key. Federalists feared that too many immigrants were joining the opposition. Under the 1798 Alien Act — with the threat of war in the air over French attacks on American shipping — President John Adams had license to deport anyone he considered “dangerous.” Although his secretary of state favored mass deportations, Adams never actually put anybody on a boat.

Back then, the French warranted the most suspicion, but there were other worrisome “aliens.” A wave of “wild Irish” refugees was thought to harbor dangerous radicals. Harsh “anti-coolie” laws later singled out the Chinese. And, of course, the millions of “involuntary” immigrants from Africa and their offspring were regarded merely as persons “held to service.”

Scratch the surface of the current immigration debate and beneath the posturing lies a dirty secret. Anti-immigrant sentiment is older than America itself. Born before the nation, this abiding fear of the “huddled masses” emerged in the early republic and gathered steam into the 19th and 20th centuries, when nativist political parties, exclusionary laws and the Ku Klux Klan swept the land.

As we celebrate another Fourth of July, this picture of American intolerance clashes sharply with tidy schoolbook images of the great melting pot. Why has the land of “all men are created equal” forged countless ghettoes and intricate networks of social exclusion? Why the signs reading “No Irish Need Apply”? And why has each new generation of immigrants had to face down a rich glossary of now unmentionable epithets? Disdain for what is foreign is, sad to say, as American as apple pie, slavery and lynching.

That fence along the Mexican border now being contemplated by Congress is just the latest vestige of a venerable tradition, at least as old as John Jay’s “wall of brass.” “Don’t fence me in” might be America’s unofficial anthem of unfettered freedom, but too often the subtext is, “Fence everyone else out.”

Kenneth C. Davis is the author of “Don’t Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned.”
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[Hard Ball]

It may be hard for you to grasp, but there is a vast difference between legal immigramts and illegal aliens.

[JWT]

GVF is completely missing the point that the Germans, Irish, Italians, etc., etc. didn't SNEAK across the border and into the country. They came in as legal immigrants. And they were even willing to learn to speak English and use it.

[The Tourist]

legal immigramts ans illegal aliens.

This is also my opinion.

For example, we have a concept for searches called "fruit of the poison tree." Briefly it means that if the government secures evidence illegally then any aspect of this evidence cannot be used.

I feel this way about 'illegal aliens.' The government seems to be looking for ways to educate their children, pay medical costs, even give them drivers licenses.

It would seem to me that since their status is 'illegal,' then no action, right or privilege under law would apply to them.

If a representative of the government finds them, they should simply be deported.

[Manedwolf]

18th-20th centuries:

Legal immigrants = people who came through Ellis Island and were processed, checked for disease, given paperwork, admitted

Illegal immigrants = tried to stow away, sneak past quarantine. DEPORTED WHEN CAUGHT


2007:

Legal immigrants = People who wait in line and come in as hardworking Americans. Welcomed when they come.

Illegal immigrants= People who sneak in across the border, bring black tar heroin, diseases, and a willingness to break laws. See also: drain on social services, identity theft, increased crime. ALLOWED TO STAY and encouraged to sneak in, as they'll be given amnesty for cutting in line ahead of the legals.

Is that simple enough?

[wingman]

Gvf, terms like nativism, isolationism, racist, etc just don't fly in my opinion especially in a country that takes in more people then all other countries combined. One huge problem we now live in a changing world with a growing population no longer can a family move here receive 40 acres/mule and provide for the family without being a burden on taxpayers.

Simply, legal, controlled immigration, that I can support.

[gvf]

Ellis Island's immigrant processing center didn't begin until 1892.

The only reason anyone was a legal immigrant instead of an illegal one prior to 1920, is because there was no illegal immigration. There were no restrictions or next to none. 1920s were first time any significant restrictions were placed.

My great-grandfather walked in from Canada in the mid-1800s, with my great-grandmother. No one stopped them.

My grandfather came in from Ireland (other family side), emptied bed pans in a mental hospital for a salary not worth much more than the contents of the bedpans, moved a couple of years later, and a few years after that when he got around to it, went to to a county court with another immigrant Irishmen who said he was a "witness", my grandfather made his mark, and bingo he was a citizen.
My great-aunt was "bought", and indentured. If Mexican in 2007, all would be illegal. So, would most of your ancestors.

In any case, the demon-izing of present day immigrants, is the same as the historical threads noted. The Irish were "apes", the Mexicans are dope-addicts, etc., etc., etc. And these currents, already expressed in forums here, are the underside of the immigration debate.

Best take any supposed policy statements or arguments on immigration with an attentive eye and ear. So good policy evolves instead of one polluted by the desire to exclude and demean.

As far as all the "all hard working getting into the country legally", I know quite a few very hard working people, Eastern European, who can't get in period, no matter what. Professionals. They're lucky if they can come for a trip. If they have a family, forget the trip, no way; Afraid they'd stay.
This is the rule, not the exception.

[LAK Supply]

Times have changed GVF. There is no room here for millions of people that come only to use the system and regain land they think was "stolen" from them. They bring drugs, crime, and gangs, along with many other facets of a corrupt third-world culture. They do not speak the language, nor do they want to. They are taking the jobs that Americans would do, and if you are going to argue with that I'll let you talk to my wife who's been unable to find an administrative job for the last several months because she doesn't speak a foreign language (SPANISH). This is not including the contstruction and other trade-related jobs that they are stealing from Americans.

Illegal Mexicans/S. Americans come here only to use the country for what they want; if they weren't the would make the sacrifices to come legally.

[Old Gaffer]

gvf,

The story of how your ancestors came to become American citizens is a perfect example of why the US came to be the reigning world power in the 20th Century. Quite simply, your ancestors played by the rules in effect at the time.

If I grasp the tone of the discussion here, that's all ANYONE is requiring - PLAY BY THE RULES.

My grandparents came in through Ellis Island from Germany in the early 1900s - that was the rule, and they followed it. And my grandfather's first order of business after landing here was to take care of food, clothing, shelter, and the use of the English language, which he didn't speak before getting here.

And if I may offer an opinion, this isn't the under-belly of the immigration debate, it IS the debate.

The United Sates was truly a melting pot until late in the 20th Century; it no longer is now. There are enclaves of nearly self-contained (though not necessarily self-sufficient) ethnicities that have neither interest nor inclination in becoming American - whatever you choose that to mean. Rather, they want to maintain their own language and cultures to the exclusion of mainstream American, all the while expecting the largess of the American taxpayer to provide those things they were unable to get, and unwilling to fight for, in their homeland.

The United States has been called "A Nation of Laws", and good things - like the privilege (not RIGHT) to be here, and citizenship - should only go to those that follow and embrace those laws

All the best, and a Safe and Happy 4th to all.

Rob Weaver

[Doug.38PR]

GVF is completely missing the point that the Germans, Irish, Italians, etc., etc. didn't SNEAK across the border and into the country. They came in as legal immigrants. And they were even willing to learn to speak English and use it.

Obviously.

Also, the other "THEM"s that came in to a certain extent assimiliated with the American population. BUT even those that didn't (such as in the north and northeastern cities (Italians, Irish, Poles etc. in said cities) brought with them problems, conflicting ideas, gangs, a clash between American values and philosophy and their own kind of values and philosophy from their country. Some of these ways of though were contrary to our own constitutional beliefs and theology (I.E. the "Forty Eighters" of Germany who were advocates of centralizing the power of national goverment here where they failed in the German states found much favor in the Radical Republican party of the 19th century. Thus adding an element for destroying the State's Rights concept of limited national government and local control that the Founding Fathers wanted)

As time went on, much of this has gradual assimlilated into American culture. But those 19th and 20th century immigrants were in the minority and were limited to certaina areas or they spread out among the general population.

NOW, can you imagine the disaster that will result (and is resulting) in letting a massive uncontrolled amount of people flow here from a country contiguous with our own (to which they are loyal to) who will in many cases eventually make up the majority in entire states (I.E. California).

That has all the makings for a war 50 years down the road with such a massive cultural and political entanglement (Like the 100 years war between France and England)

[gvf]

Sounds exactly like the 18th century remark already quoted relating to Germans in tone of hysteria:

a Lutheran minister named Henry Muhlenberg, himself a recent arrival from Germany: “the whole country is being flooded with ordinary, extraordinary and unprecedented wickedness and crimes. ... Oh, what a fearful thing it is to have so many thousands of unruly and brazen sinners come into this free air and unfenced country.”

same as used against "Papists" in 18th cent. same as against JFK's Catholicism: "We'll be RULED By the POPE!"

Hysteria. The IMMIGRANTS ARE COMING

As far as "sneaking" across the border, my family didn't have to sneak, they let them in easily. nobody cared. They do now, so down south and west they sneak. What do you expect - they can't get in any other way. If my friends in Poland who are teachers and other professionals gone to universities haven't a prayer, you think a cleaning lady from Mexico does?

[LAK Supply]

Hysteria. The ILLEGAL, LAW-BREAKING IMMIGRANTS ARE COMING

There. Fixed it for 'ya.

There is a HUGE difference between immigrants and ILLEGAL ALIENS.

[Doug.38PR]

gvf,
that's not hysteria, that's historical fact. Many of the German immigrants of the 1840s had a STRONG influence in boosting power for the Republican/Nationalist party and increasing the power of the federal government over the states.

On that note, it's no small secret that Hispanics have strong tendancy to vote Democrat

[Manedwolf]

I'm guessing that GVF doesn't live in any of the areas where illegals are straining social services to the breaking point and using hospital ERs as first aid kits.

Or where the Zetas are making inroads.

[gvf]

"There is a HUGE difference between immigrants and ILLEGAL ALIENS."

Yes, but the argument seems to be about the laws, does it not? And it was not illegal in the 19th and early 20th century. That's the point, what should be legal
Your treating the problem as the answer.

I can do that: I'll outlaw handguns.

OK, they're outlawed.

Now, if anyone argues that people used to use them responsibly my answer will be that back then they were acting legally and now they're not.

OK now?

[2nd Amendment]

gvf also carefully avoids mentioning that prior immigrants, illegal, legal or indifferent, came here to make their own way. There were no government handouts. Nobody gave them free medical care or robbed the treasury to pay for their food, etc. They came knowing they were on their own hook, and perhaps the kindness of their fellow man.

Today the driving incentive, other than the dollar itself, is the freebies. Get those foodstamps and welfare checks and health care and hosuing and almost all while avoiding paying anything back into the system.

Want to cure the Illegals Issue? Eliminate all those federal programs, state ones, too, and let the the Citizenry keep it's money. You'd have precious few illegals after that and those that did come would, like those in the past, do it knowing they were on their own and hoping for a better life by the sweat of their own brow.

[gvf]

Ok let's do it.

It's done.


OK to let the southerners in now?

[gvf]

"gvf,
that's not hysteria, that's historical fact. Many of the German immigrants of the 1840s had a STRONG influence in boosting power for the Republican/Nationalist party and increasing the power of the federal government over the states.
On that note, it's no small secret that Hispanics have strong tendancy to vote Democrat"

Quite right: It's not hysteria. It's just predicating citizenship on participation in a particular political party. Sounds like the gates are open to me... we just keep out Democrats and Nationalists. (But we should we not deport those that already are Democrats? - making it symmetrical?)

[2nd Amendment]

If any want to come up, determined to make it on their own, we can give it a shot. Considering how much more free cash I have now without all those taxes and how much better my business is doing with all those OTHER tax-free Citizens spending their extra cash, I'm feeling downright charitable.

Seriously, though, you DID leave that reality entirely out of your equation and without it your equation simply doesn't work.

[Doug.38PR]

It's not hysteria, it's just predicating citizenship on participation in a particular political party. Sounds like the gates are open to me... we just keep out Democrats and Nationalists. (But we should we not deport those that already are Democrats? - making it symmetrical?)

no we shouldn't, but you're missing the point, in both instances, then and now, it empowers or creates a faction that is against the principles government which the country was founded on. Something the Founding Fathers and their decendants would never have approved of....or any country would approve of for that matter.

Not only that...but conservative areas (the South and Southwest), due to this massive flood will gradually become more liberal as more immigrants that support such policies come in.

Let me just make this as gun related as possible to give you a clear understanding. HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO EMPOWER THE ANTI GUN FORCES

[gvf]

Deleted: Double Post

[gvf]

"Seriously, though, you DID leave that reality entirely out of your equation and without it your equation simply doesn't work."

Well, seriously, you're right. And I don't know what the answer is.

But I wasn't supporting a particular law or policy, my point was that the argument I feel to be framed in ugly ways, at many times, and fear and bigotry being always with us, if we don't watch it, whatever the policy, it will cause harm to the country. And practical, objective policies, based both on realities of 2007 along with our history as the sole beacon of hope for so many millions, will somehow be found - if we act like our best selves.

That's as far as I can get.

Over and Out. Have a good 4th.

[Doug.38PR]

There is indeed a thin line between letting fear control your actions (thus letting your actions get out of control) and taking actions based on well founded fears to prevent those well founded fears from coming to pass.

It's raining here on the 4th....but that's okay, I just went out and had some Bar B Q anyway

[SatanzBountyHunter]

Reminds me of this short column:

We need to show more sympathy for these people.

They travel miles in the heat, they risk their lives crossing a border,

They don't get paid enough wages,

They do jobs that others won't do or are afraid to do,

They live in crowded conditions among a people who speak a different language,

They rarely see their families,

They face adversity all day every day.

I'm not talking about illegal aliens, I'm talking about our troops. Doesn't it seem strange that the liberals are willing to lavish all kinds of social benefits on illegals, but don't support our troops and are now threatening to defund them?

[RedneckFur]

GVF.. you certainly feel very strongly about this issue. Obviously we have a problem with illegal imigration. How do you feel that we should try to solve it?

I'll echo the others in saying that previous imagrants did play by the rules, and follow what laws there were, at the time that they lived. Most came here to work and make a new life for themselves. Those that stowed away in ships were often deported (or worse) when they were found.

We have a system in this country for taking in imagrants who wish to become Americans. It might not be perfect, but it does work. Those break the laws of this country by entering and getting "under the table" jobs, and abuse our hospitals and health care systems seem to have little desire to become American.