Thread: Heads Up! The great immigration myth

Heads Up! This article or the content it states is likely to be used by illegal immigrant advocates and the pro-illegal alien pack. Be prepared to prepare a rebuttal or an arguement against.

The great immigration myth
Our ancestors came to the U.S. illegally
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Newhouse News Service
Monterey County Herald
Article Last Updated:08/05/2007 02:00:10 AM PDT
http://www.montereyherald.com/commentar ... ck_check=1

There are many solid arguments for why the United States should not grant legal status to illegal immigrants, as proposed in the failed Senate immigration reform bill.
But throughout the immigration debate, one particular mantra was heard from opponents of legalization, perhaps more than any other:

"My ancestors came here legally."

So too, the argument holds, must today's immigrants. We're a nation of laws, we must be consistent and we must not reward lawbreakers.

It's a mighty handy argument that worked wonders for opponents of the legalization bill. It's logical and draws a clear moral distinction between previous generations of law-abiding immigrants and today's border-jumpers. It heads off allegations of xenophobia, allowing the speaker to say it's not immigrants he or she is against, just illegality.

It works, too, because it rings true with Americans. The images burned into our brains of previous immigration waves come largely from newsreels and photos of immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island, one at a time, orderly, legally.

There's one problem with the argument. It's utter hogwash.

First of all, for hundreds of years, as immigrants poured in by the hundreds of thousands from the 1600s to the early 1900s, there were simply no federal immigration laws to break.

Unless you were a criminal or insane (or after 1882, Chinese), once you landed here, you were legal.

Crediting yesteryear's immigrants with following the laws is like calling someone a good driver because they never got caught speeding on the Autobahn.

"Only 1 percent of people who showed up at Ellis Island were turned away," said Mae Ngai, author of "Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America."

"What that statement is ignorant of is that we didn't always have restrictions. It's a fairly recent phenomenon."

Level the playing field hypothetically, and the argument becomes even more preposterous.

Imagine today's immigration laws, which make it impossible for most poor foreign farmers to immigrate legally, in effect in, say, 1849.

Somewhere in Ireland, a starving farmer turns to his family, their mouths green from eating grass in the midst of the potato famine.

"We could escape to America and have food to eat," the farmer says. "But I'd never do that without a visa. That would be a violation of U.S. immigration law."

Ridiculous, of course. That farmer would have done exactly what today's Mexicans, Chinese and Guatemalans are doing by the millions — get to the United States so they can feed their families, and worry about getting papers later.

Which brings us to the second reason the "my ancestors came legally" argument is absurd.

It's because lots of people's ancestors simply didn't.

Once Congress put immigration quotas in place to keep out less desirable Eastern and Southern Europeans in 1921, they began sneaking in by the thousands.

On June 17, 1923, the New York Times reported that W.H. Husband, commissioner general of immigration, had been trying for two years "to stem the flow of immigrants from central and southern Europe, Africa and Asia that has been leaking across the borders of Mexico and Canada and through the ports of the east and west coasts."

A story from the Sept. 16, 1927, New York Times describes government plans for stepped-up Coast Guard patrols because thousands of Chinese, Japanese, Greeks, Russians and Italians were landing in Cuba and then hiring smugglers to take them to the United States, illegally.

Two years earlier, the immigration service reported that 1.4 million immigrants might be living illegally in the U.S., according to the immigration service's 1925 annual report.

"The figures presented are worthy of very serious thought, especially when it is considered that such a great percentage of our population('s) ... first act upon reaching our shores was to break our laws by entering in a clandestine manner," the report found.

The problem got so bad that the government was forced to legalize an estimated 200,000 illegal European immigrants by a process called pre-examination. These days, the process would be called amnesty.

Clearly, if everyone's grandparents said they immigrated legally, someone's grandparents were lying.

"When people cite their grandparents, they're basically operating with a very limited understanding of what immigration was back then," said Edward O'Donnell, author of "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History."

"There's nothing people are more proud of than these huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It's based on a very skewed or no knowledge of history."

Stanford University history professor Richard White discovered that disconnect after he began researching a book on his family's immigrant past.

White found that his grandfather tried to immigrate from Ireland through Canada in 1936 because he could not get a visa under the quota laws.

"He tried to come through Detroit. It was hard to get caught at Detroit, but he managed to get caught," White said. Back in Canada, his grandfather called his brother, a Chicago police officer, who crossed the border and met him there. The two then walked to Detroit, his brother flashing his Chicago policeman's badge to U.S. customs officers who waved the pair through.

"I wouldn't be here, my brothers wouldn't be here if illegal aliens had been rounded up and dragged out," said White, a 1992 Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Few people say what White does in public. But since Ngai wrote her book in 2005, she has heard from some of them. They're not going on talk shows, blogging or writing letters to newspaper editors. But they're out there, even if they don't know it.

Perhaps if the Senate's legalization bill comes around again, their story could be a rallying cry for those in favor of amnesty.

"Their voice drops to a whisper," Ngai says. "And they say to me, 'You know, my grandparents came illegally.'"

Brian Donohue covers immigration issues for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.

It holds little next to no validity concerning the issue's of today's world when comparing technology , land use , etc. The arguments it makes for amnesty in today's world are obviously flawed to any one with the most fundamental of historical knowledge.

I will not address it in any meaningful way unless and until it is thrown in my face by the pro Amnesty crowd. Why give them time to whittle on our rebuttals?

Mermaids and faeries are myth but we have immigration laws. To state one's ancestors came here legally, means they registered as they entered in an orderly and proper fashion. And that their names were recorded for identity purposes. That in turn means they accept our culture and are thankful for an opportunity to become an American which is a true blessing not a right.

The fact is - this is a different time - a different country.

Back then, there weren't the 'safety nets' which these illegals so happily avail themselves of - in great numbers.

Back then we had plenty of resources, water, land, etc. to sustain additional people. We don't have those now. We don't even have much 'breathing room'.

These people who pretend 'we are a nation of immigrants' - or 'we have always welcomed people' - are hoping no one points out the very obvious -

We have 'Been there - done that' - it's time to revamp that system.

Our ancestors came here legally in accordance with the rules in place at the time. They reported to Ellis Island or other ports of entry as required. The illegals and their pals are becoming increasingly desperate and their arguments are making less and less sense. I wasn't sure that was possible, but it is.

When cars were first introduced, people did not have to have a driver's license, they just hopped behind the wheel and away they went. I suspect our early ancesters also did not have to acquire a gun permit to own a firearm. Does that mean that today no one should have to have a driver's license or gun permit? And.......when the ancestors of today's American citizens entered the US legally to start a new life, there was not welfare, WIC, section 8 housing, EITC, La Raza, the ACLU, MALDEF and so on. You either made it on your own or you went back home. Today's illegal aliens could not have survived under the conditions our forefathers did.

If there were no immigration laws, then they weren't illegal immigrants. Times have changed, and we are a modern, sovereign nation.

I was thinking the article made no sense because I can trace my ancestors through legal documents and paperwork that they came here legally,so this author has no legs to stand on with me and I have a feeling she doesn't with a GREAT MAJORITY of US citizens.
Her whole arguement is that a few people came through illegally but thats just it A FEW not the vast majority,there has always been and always will be cheaters thats how the world is.If you use her logic and apply it to everything you get chaos -There are people who ate food sprayed with ddt and lived to tell the tale,so it shouldn't have been outlawed.
There were no child protective laws "back then"either so why have any now.
As CamilleinChicago said -there were no drivers licenses or gun permits "back then" either.The list could go on forever but, I think y'all get the point.



Head 'em up,move 'em out Rawhide!

You know we shouldn't get caught up in the 'my ancestors came here legally' thing.

Hopefully, they did. If they didn't, they were wrong and what in the world does that have to do with ANYTHING?

If my father had been a bank robber, couldn't I still want laws against bank robbery to remain in place?

Apples and oranges - that was then - this is now.

EVERYTIME THE OPEN BORDERS CROWD STARTS GOING OVER HISTORY, IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A DIVERSION.

EVERYTIME THEY SAY "THEY STOLE OUR LAND", "THEY CAME HERE ILLEGALLY", THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS ARE.....BLAH BLAH BLAH. IT IS A DIVERSION.

ILLEGALS ARE HERE ILLEGALLY AND WE WANT THEM TO LEAVE PERIOD. WE DONT NEED A REASON.

THEY ARE IN VIOLATION OF OUR LAWS AND WE WANT THEM TO LEAVE. THAT SHOULD BE THE ARGUMENT.

WHY DO WE NEED TO GO OVER HISTORY OR PROVE THAT THEY ARE A MENACE TO OUR SOCIETY? THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY ....PERIOD. THATS IT.

SO WHAT IF THEY HAVE FAMILY HERE, OR IF THINGS ARENT GOOD IN MEXICO, OR IF THEY HAVE BEEN HERE MANY YEARS......BIG DEAL.

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THEY ARE HERE ILLEGALLY AND WE WANT THEM TO GO.

IF THEY DONT LIKE IT ....TOO BAD. WE DO LIKE IT.

Aren't ALL countries a result of "immigration" at some point?? How far back does one have to go to be "native?" Africa? I really get tired of hearing this one. Even native Americans were originally immigrants. What a red herring in face of the infrastructure and laws as this country has now - built by true immigrants who assimilated - and never claimed this was "stolen land" ready for "reconquering." I think this author should try emigrating to Mexico - he thinks OUR laws are unjust!