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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (20103)	11/15/2001 3:55:17 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Concern about immigration is a constant theme in American history. Wave after wave came in, each wave accompanied by angst on the part of the children of the previous wave. As for nobody caring who came, at the turn of the century, the Federal Government cared passionately about too many Asians coming into the country.

To: Ilaine who wrote (20103)	11/15/2001 4:00:18 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Nobody really cared who was here. People came and went without government keeping track of them. Yes, maybe Neo knows. I was under the impression that it's only in the last thirty years or so that we've become so mellow about our borders. If you think about it in the abstract, the very most basic element of security is keeping people you don't know from crossing your borders, whether they come in twos and threes or whether they come in divisions and battalions. Given our geography and history, it's hard to get our heads around the notion of invasion. Easier to imagine ballistic missiles. Karen

To: Ilaine who wrote (20103)	11/15/2001 4:18:57 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 59480

The federal government always had responsibility for naturalization, of course, and the continental expansion produced labor shortages that brought many Irish and Chinese here to work, for example. Still, some people were unhappy (remember the Yellow Peril?),and wanted tighter controls of the flow of immigration, including health checks and proof of destination. That is a big reason for the setting up of Ellis Island, which processed more than half of the immigrants in our history for about 50 years around the turn of the century. Attitudes have see- sawed, but it was in the '20s, after the last great wave of immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, that people most worried about the pace of immigration. There were various reasons. One was that the slum areas of major cities swelled, during a period of self- consciousness about public health and living conditions. Partly due to the overcrowding in the slums, the influenza epidemic of 1918 hit particularly hard. Another was worry about political affiliations. For one thing, a disproportionate number of Jews who emigrated were socialists of various stripes, and there were Communists and anarchists among the Italians. The Red Scare, after the war, was partly linked to immigration worries. Even for those not inclined to radical politics, many were easily bribed by the big urban Democratic machines to sell their votes, as it were. Republicans thus looked upon immigration as a source of corruption. During the World War, anxieties about loyalty were aroused. After all, some Germans immigrants actually rooted for the Fatherland. That is one of the reasons that the Pledge of Allegiance became a normal part of school exercises. Also, there were racist reasons. People who were presumed of inferior stock (Slavs, Italians, Jews, among others) were coming to America in large waves, just as alarmist books were being published about the embattled Nordic or Teutonic race. To top it off, rudimentary intelligence tests, making elementary mistakes like testing in English, were being used to prove imbecility among a substantial proportion of immigrants. Anyway, legislation severely limiting immigration was passed in the early '20s, and it was not until the '60s that immigration was much expanded. By that time, of course, our immigrant past had become romanticized, and there were some misgivings about the relatively modest increase in the flow of immigration. Anyway, at about that point, illegal immigration began to become a big national issue. Partially, that was because of scandals about abuse, particularly among migrant workers. Part of it was that illegals were regarded as turnstile jumpers, as it were, people who did not, like grandma and grandpa, wait their turn........