The origins of “illegal immigration”

*** Caution – very long post ***

While reading a story about a Rush Limbaugh bringing out Spanish language versions of his history books, the author (of Mexican ancestors) made an important point, but then undercut it by deliberately misstating history.

Prior to 1917, there was no such thing as an illegal immigrant to the United States. As long as you weren’t carrying a communicable disease, everyone was welcome.
* with a few minor exceptions from Asia

In 1916, Progressive icon Woodrow Wilson was in his 6th year in office. The eugenics movement was starting up with the goal to purge the world (or at least the United States) of genetically defective humans – Gypsies, Jews, Eplileptics, Polygamists, Homosexuals, Negroes [list sound familiar?] Wilson of course was a Democrat and the Democratic Party held control over both houses of Congress. It was they who created the notion of controlling what types of immigrants would be allowed and excluding “undesirables”. Most of Asia was completely excluded, and the rest of the immigrants (except Western Europe) were limited to 3% per year of the existing population of the United States.

Some of the motivation for this law was the “War to End all Wars” in Europe. World War One started in Europe in 1914 – Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 based in part on a pledge to keep the United States out of the war in Europe. The Asian Exclusion Zone included most of the Ottoman Enpire. People were fleeing from Eastern Europe to the United States in numbers that made Progressive Democrats nervous.

In 1917, the Constitution wasn’t yet changed to install the new Congress in January – creating a very long “lame duck” Congress in 1917. Woodrow Wilson didn’t want the immigration act, so did a “pocket veto” in December 1916 – not signing a bill while Congress was out of session. When they returned in January 1917, Congress overrode Wilson’s veto on February 5th 1917, passing the 1917 immigration act into law. Later that year, Wilson decided the U.S. should get involved in the European War. Russia has fallen to the Red Communists.

The Congress that took office in March 1917 was also solidly Democratic. With Democrats angry that Woodrow Wilson took the country to war, Republican won control of both houses on Congress in 1918.

The 22nd amendment didn’t exist yet, and Democrats were terrified of Wilson trying for a third term in 1920 and he was in failing health. Behind the scenes in the smoke filled rooms, Wilson was pushed aside. The Democrats instead ran a candidate named Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a newspaper publisher from Dayton named James M Cox (who would eventually buy WSB in Atlanta). They lost the 1920 election to Warren G Harding, installing a Republican president with a strong Republican majority in Congress. The country was fed up with Progressive politics and war.

So who was responsible for creating the racist, xenophobic 1917 immigration law? Republicans of course.

Now solidly in charge of the country, Republicans didn’t repeal the 1917 law. Clearly they were to blame. In 1920, the “Great Northern Migration” was fully underway, with the immigration law blocking new immigration and Henry Ford having to import labor instead from the Southeastern United States. Blacks flooded the North, and the KKK reconstituted itself in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio and New York to try to scare blacks to go back home in the South. Following the success of the Worker’s revolution in Russia, the International labor movement was having trouble organizing Ford’s auto plants. He just kept importing more Republican blacks from Alabama who wanted a job, not a union.

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the civil war in Russia, an update was passed in 1921 called the Emergency Quota Act, which strengthened the idea of limiting immigration to people who were similar to those already living here. There was no Democratic Party opposition.

In 1922, Republicans took huge losses in Congressional elections, but retained control. Warren G Harding died of heart disease in August 1923, replaced by Calvin Coolidge from Vermont, the second whitest state in the United States. Coolidge was what Dixiecrats now call a “RINO” – a Progressive Republican from New England who supported Women’s Suffrage and popular election of US Senators. He wasn’t quite as Progressive as Teddy Roosevelt.

Congress in 1924 further restricted immigration – lowering the annual rate from 3% to 2%, and moving the base year back to 1890. It also created the concept of requiring a visa issued by the consulate before a foreigner could enter the United States. There was no Democratic Party opposition. It was truly a bipartisan law in every sense. That remained the Immigration law of the United States until 1952. The bill 1952 law strengthening the 1924 law was written by Democrats and vetoed by Harry Truman (D) who was offended by the idea of limiting immigration based on where immigrants came from. The Democratic controlled Congress overrode his veto.

Senator McCarre, the author of the bill in the Senate summed up his victory as follows:

I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished. I take no issue with those who would praise the contributions which have been made to our society by people of many races, of varied creeds and colors. … However, we have in the United States today hard-core, indigestible blocs which have not become integrated into the American way of life, but which, on the contrary are its deadly enemies. Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain. The solution of the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States. … I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation’s downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.

So what is the history in the United States on immigration? Who are really the RINOs?

For bonus points, what was Rush Limbaugh’s position on NAFTA?

http://youtu.be/ycgYMFZd_Cw