Thread: Gingrich Harkens Back To Earlier Era Of Immigration Restrict

Gingrich Harkens Back To Earlier Era Of Immigration Restriction

February 03, 2011 7:23 pm ET by Jocelyn Fong

During a discussion of the DREAM Act with Newt Gingrich at George Washington University this week, Howard Dean said "the reason this country is such an extraordinary success" is because it is populated with the descendants of self-starting immigrants who took a risk to come here.

Gingrich, a Fox News contributor and possible presidential candidate, replied by invoking Ellis Island as evidence that counter to the "mythology" about immigration history, the United States "had a very long stretch of controlled immigration":

GINGRICH: My wife's grandmother came from Poland at a time when it was occupied and she was actually listed as a Hungarian citizen because her part of Poland was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. She arrived at Ellis Island where they wrote down her name, the ship she was on, where she came from, where she was going and they inspected her for health and would have kicked her out if she had not passed the health inspection. So there's this mythology -- we had a very long stretch of controlled immigration, and all of you should someday go to Ellis Island.

It's not clear what Gingrich wants us to take from this. But it's worth noting that U.S. immigration control in the early 20th century was structured around racial bias.

Ellis Island served as an immigration station from 1892 to 1924. During that time Chinese workers were forbidden to enter the country because, as President Cleveland wrote in 1888, the "experiment of blending the social habits and mutual race idiosyncrasies of the Chinese laboring classes with those of the great body of the people of the United States has proved by the experience of twenty years ... in every sense unwise, impolitic, and injurious to both nations."

Chinese exclusion began in 1882, and according to immigration expert Roger Daniels:

It marked the moment when the golden doorway of admission to the United States began to narrow and initiated a thirty-nine year period of successive exclusions of certain kinds of immigrants, 1882-1921, followed by twenty-two years, 1921-43, when statutes and administrative actions set narrowing numerical limits for those immigrants who had not otherwise been excluded. During those years a federal bureaucracy was created to control immigration and immigrants, a bureaucracy whose initial raison d'etre was to keep out first Chinese and then others who were deemed to be inferior.

Historian Hasia Diner explains that the immigration restriction system erected by Congress in 1920, "gave preference to immigrants from northern and western Europe":

Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914-191 and into the early 1920s, Congress did change the nation's basic policy about immigration. The National Origins Act in 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from northern and western Europe, severely limited the numbers from eastern and southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia to be unworthy of entry into the United States.

Daniels noted that "no numerical limitation was placed on Western Hemisphere immigration, partly because many Southwestern and Western legislators insisted that their regions needed Mexican agricultural labor." Congress stipulated, however, that those born in "European colonies in the New World" were still subject to limits -- those affected being "almost all black."

Mexican immigrants moved more or less freely across the border, drawn by a demand for labor in the United States. But when the Great Depression hit, the government began sending Mexican workers, and even some U.S. citizens to Mexico -- only to shift course again when workers were needed during World War II.

In 1965, Congress replaced the racially based quota system with one that "provided preferences for relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents and for immigrants with job skills deemed useful to the United States," in the words of the Congressional Budget Office. That system has not been significantly reformed since.

So what was Gingrich getting at? Then, as now, movement over the Southern border was driven by economic forces. When the U.S. "controlled immigration" in the early 20th century, that often meant keeping out groups seen as racially inferior.

From the February 1 debate at George Washington University:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201102030045

Video at link!

So which of his three wives' mother came from Poland? And since she arrived here and obviously stayed, where was the problem?

My grandmother escaped to what was then Austria-Hungary during the Bolshevik revolution from the Ukraine. My grandfather followed two years later (from the same village in the Ukraine but married here). They received physical exams and those who had ANY defects were sent back, although it was a most arduous journey. In my grandmother's passage, an entire family was returned because the father had one leg shorter than the other, and the thought was he might become dependent on US citizens.

So what about your wife's mother's difficulty? It should be difficult to come here and be allowed to stay. It should be appreciated when it occurs, like my grandparents loved this country. They owned a farm in the Ukraine, it was taken from them and given to many others who were lazy and did not work and then everyone was hungry. They escaped and refused welfare during the depression - they saw where that led. They lived in their basement and took in boarders. Then my grandmother took her 8 children to Shell Oil and cried in the hiring office. He gave my grandfather a job and asked my grandmother not to tell anyone how he got it - and she never did.

Ok, Newt you RINO globalist, don't think for one lousy minute we will by your stupid story of the trials of immigrants, because we can top them. And with stories of people who refused assistance from the country they loved, and then sent their sons off to fight in WWII and the Korean War as well.

And don't think we would vote for you for president either.

Then, as now, movement over the Southern border was driven by economic forces. When the U.S. "controlled immigration" in the early 20th century, that often meant keeping out groups seen as racially inferior.

Economic forces in the U.S. cannot afford more people entering illegally, especially swarms of people entering the country illegally or overstaying their visas, etc. Illegals are exceptionally draining financially on American taxpayers. This bs that they do not qualify for welfare is just that, bs. They simply lie, steal identities or have anchor babies and live off the anchor baby's welfare. This nation is broke, with millions of Americans out of work and trying to survive in their own country. Americans (the vast majority) do not care about race, as Americans are indeed a mixture of many races; what they care about is not having their jobs and lives ruined by swarms of people from other countries we can no longer afford or assimilate - among health concerns, crime concerns - rape, murder, stolen identity concern, chain migration concerns, stolen job concerns, increasing gang concerns - comprised mostly of illegal hispanics, drug activity concerns, lost seats in colleges and schools, overwhelmed hosptials that close due to the cost of taking care of uninsured who illegals comprise a lot of, the drunken driving and subsequent accidents - some fatal that so many illegals do and then since they have no insurance, of course the taxpayer pays for this too, and infiltration of crime syndicates who sneak in with other illegals and have taken a hold in areas of our national parks where signs are now posted as being dangerous.

Illegals by far cost more than some pay in. U.S. taxpayers are struggling enough.

Economic forces in the U.S. cannot afford more immigrants entering illegally. We are full-up.

Any American legally registered voter needs to be vigilant and very, very careful casting a vote for any candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

Gingrich, Huckabee, McCain, Rubio and even Romney all have elusive, noncommital amnesty stances. They may not advocate open borders, but none of them have a hard line solution as to what to do with the absolute mess we are now faced with regarding illegal immigration in this country. Immigration laws are on the books. Those laws and the lawmakers whose responsibility is to enforce them need to grow teeth. Anchor babies are the biggest problem, but so is allowing illegals to reside in any country illegally. A country without respected borders from those without will cease to be a country.....sooner or later.

Originally Posted by escalade

Any American legally registered voter needs to be vigilant and very, very careful casting a vote for any candidate in the 2012 presidential election.

Gingrich, Huckabee, McCain, Rubio and even Romney all have elusive, noncommital amnesty stances. They may not advocate open borders, but none of them have a hard line solution as to what to do with the absolute mess we are now faced with regarding illegal immigration in this country. Immigration laws are on the books. Those laws and the lawmakers whose responsibility is to enforce them need to grow teeth. Anchor babies are the biggest problem, but so is allowing illegals to reside in any country illegally. A country without respected borders from those without will cease to be a country.....sooner or later.

I so agree with you. We need to be very wary as to whom we vote for in 2012. I was a big fan of Romney at one time but some things he has said in regards to illegal immigraton since he lost the last nomination makes me wonder about him. I am going to research each candidate as they come forth and when it is determined who the Republican nominee will be if they don't have a proven track record of being tough on illegal immigration I won't vote for them. I would rather sit the election out then help put another anti-American traitor in the White House.