Legacy

IMMIGRATION IMPASSE

By Karl C. Priest January 23, 2018 (revised 3-1-18)

[A version of this article ws submitted (on April 3, 2019) to both editors (one liberal and one claiming to be conservative) of the Charleston Gazette-Mail. On 4-15-19 I reminded the Gazette-Mail’s executive editor, Greg Moore and the Gazette-Mail’s opinion editor Ben Fields. In a 4-14 (page 1B) article they claimed the Gazette-Mail’s opinion pages are “a place for our readers and neighbors to learn, and to speak their minds” and “to represent a variety of viewpoints…(to) challenge all of us to consider other perspectives and the complexities of the issues facing the world…” If it is ever printed (not censored) I will give credit where it is due.]

I grew up in Orchard Manor. At the time, that housing project was notorious for crime and poverty. South Hills was, and still is, a part of town known for wealth and very little crime. Had I used the so-called “thinking” of today’s liberals, I could have migrated to South Hills and those residents would have been forced to provide me with housing, food, medical care, and many other perks that were available in that area.

Let’s not quibble over the common definition of immigration as moving from one country to another. Liberals are not interested in facts, just feelings. Hundreds of Manor kids would have greatly benefitted from the opportunities that could be found in South Hills. Our parents and relatives could have joined us to multiply the generosity of South Hills residents.

Now, to the reality of the present debate over Illegal Immigration into the United States. Liberals easily ignore the law, which makes these people criminals, even before many of them commit serious crimes inside our country.

To give liberals the abundance of consideration, I will assume they are pure in thought and merely kind-hearted. I will not get into the matter of Democrats needing a voter bloc of unskilled and unassimilated servants. Liberals’ feelings blind them to the reality that Illegal Immigration is destroying our country.

Calling them “Undocumented Workers” or some other term only works on products of public schools who cannot think independently—i.e. liberals.

It is an insult to Americans, still capable of using common sense, to be called the names that liberals use when people demand a halt to Illegal Immigration. It is not a matter of stopping immigration. Migrants (of all countries, colors and creeds), who follow the rules, are still welcomed with open arms. Those who have skills that will help America and allow the migrant of help themselves should move to the front of the line.

People in the deplorable (Mrs. Clinton used that word to describe millions of Americans, so it should be okay to use here.) countries should be continued to be provided with the generous aide (money, medicine, materials, and more) that America has always provided. Those countries should also be offered courses in setting up a government like what was done in Colonial America.

By the way, my migrant ancestor crossed the ocean as a prisoner (perhaps in chains) to work (probably alongside African slaves) on a sugar plantation in Barbados.

Now, here are some final facts to migrate into liberal minds.

Everyone in this country, including the so-called Native Americans, came here from another continent.

Currently there are plenty of American born dreamers. Let’s take care of them first.

ADDENDUM

Immigration in Teddy Roosevelt’s Era

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

See MUCH MORE from a liberal site.

The idea of excluding anarchists from immigrating was first mentioned at a Congressional hearing in 1889…Theodore Roosevelt urged the exclusion and deportation of anarchist immigrants in his first address to Congress on December 3, 1901: “I earnestly recommend to the congress that in the exercise of its wise discretion it should take into consideration the coming to this country of anarchists or persons professing principles hostile to all government....They and those like them should be kept out of this country; and if found here they should be promptly deported to the country whence they came.”

President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Act, officially "An Act To regulate the immigration of aliens into the United States", ch. 1012, 32 Stat. 1222, into law on March 3, 1903, the last day of the 57th United States Congress. It codified previous immigration law and added four inadmissible classes: anarchists, people with epilepsy, beggars, and importers of prostitutes. It also allowed for the deportation within two years of anyone unlawfully in the country and raised the head tax on immigrants to the United States to two dollars ($2.00).

This was the first legislation in the U.S. since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 that called for questioning potential immigrants about their political beliefs. The Act barred anyone "who disbelieves in or who is opposed to all organized government, or who is a member of or affiliated with any organization entertaining or teaching such disbelief in or opposition to all organized government." The law also limited the deportation of non-citizen anarchists to the first three years of their residency in the United States.

Immigration Act of 1903

“All idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living…”

Immigration Act of 1907

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