Tuesday, June 19, 2018

The Birth of the Illegal Immigrant + Were They Joking About that Wall?

Do you ever wonder HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Is it a very bad joke gone wrong? First the KKK, then a very big wall.

AND...when did taking children away from parents and holding them hostage become a way of getting legislation passed?

As it turns out, determent camps are looking better and better. At least children were not taken away from their parents when German, Japanese and Italian people were held in such places during WWII.

As I understand it, our mess started with our president being easily bored. His mind is going a mile a minute so staying on the subject is hard. I understand how that is.

I question the idea than anyone was serious about building a wall when it first came up. I think that it was during one of those squirrelly hyper active moments that Trump jumped from another subject to illegal Mexicans and their drugs and guns that someone in his group suggested that we could just build a really high wall between around the USA. They were, I have read, simply trying to get him to focus. Is this true? Did that happen. But most importantly...could they have been just joking, easing the tension? Maybe. 

From Fox News. Image by Carolyn Kaster, The Associated Press

In the end it doesn't really matter. The nonsense ship has sailed. Even John Kelly said that "that some of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises on immigration were 'uninformed.'" But we will say one thing for Trump, he does keep a campaign promise, even a very bad one.

What a mess this has left us with! Honestly!

Our unwanted and hated immigrants have been a problem since the USA actually became a independent nation. Those that arrived early resented the Irish, the Catholics and then the Chinese. A law was passed in 1884 call the Chinese Exclusion Act. It was our first Federal immigration law.

If you are interested, you can go to places like Pendleton, Oregon and find how those Chinese people lived under the sidewalks in underground villages in order to survive. I have been there and seen what that was like.

As history shows us, the more we tried to block legal entry into the USA, the worse illegal entry has became. This gave rise to some vicious and illegal practices by government officials.  I give you Joe Arpaio of Arizona. His tent cities for illegals gained national attention as inhumane and he was ordered to quit racial profiling of Hispanics by the courts.  He was convicted of a ignoring that order in 2017. Trump pardoned him shortly thereafter.

But I digress.

As I was saying, that Chinese exclusion act was revised and became the 1924 Immigration Act introduced quotas that gave preference to northern and western Europe and only allowed only those who could become a naturalized citizen as defined by a law that dates back to 1790. Then that ugly law reared it's head again just lately:
Our Attorney General, Jefferson Sessions ".... stated that the 1924 Immigration Act “was good for America.” 
But according to Mae M. Ngai, a professor of Asian American studies and history at Columbia University, “the 1924 act is considered almost universally to be a stain on our history.”
History Channel has a very good article on the subject called The Birth of "Illegal" Immigration. In that article they referred to the Hart-Celler Immigration Act put into law in the mid 1960s.
Prior to this, Mexican immigrants freely, and commonly, found work in the United States. Yet after the Hart-Celler Immigration Act was passed, “Whole groups of migrants from Mexico and Latin America whose entrance to the U.S. would have been considered legal before 1965 suddenly became illegal,” writes Jane Hong, a history professor at Occidental College, in The L.A. Times. 
By ignoring the realities of migration between Mexico and the U.S., the law created a problem where there was none before. And this idea that the United States can radically alter immigrants’ legal status, for good or ill, has implications for today.
So when I got this comment on Facebook from a follower in India, I was very interested. She said
 I am not here to comment on what Trump is doing. I am not into the right or the wrong of it.

However, I want to tell you something.

Most Rohingya Muslims illegally entered India. And slowly some political parties helped in providing them with papers.

Despite living in refugee camps they have not stopped having babies. In an average each family has more than 8 kids and pregnant wives. Each day 60 kids are born.

They want all kinds of facilities from the Govt of India. They don't wish to be deported to Myanmar from where they arrived or to Bangladesh, their country of Origin.

When India talks of deporting, so called Human Rights activists cry foul. Why should we share our resources with refugees who are breeding like rabbits?
What is the solution? 
This Facebook post reminded me that people migrating around the world, trying to find some sort of life is so common. The children that the Facebook user talked about is one of our problems too. "Breeding like rabbits" is not a good idea. That is the other side of the immigration coin...illegal immigrants could be using their children to gain sympathy so they can get what they want.

Who knows where this is going! But I still wonder, is this wall idea a joke gone bad. Did the president of our country latch onto unwanted immigrants as a flash point so that the people that followed him would like him more...hatred...it doesn't really matter who the hatred is against. He just needed someone for them to  hate.

What do you think?

b+

8 comments:

  1. It could be racism. Maybe not, but probably is. People, typically uneducated people but then again not always, sometimes initially react poorly to people that don't look like them. I am a fourth generation immigrant. My great-great grandparents were those unwanted Irish that arrived here in the 1840's. It doesn't seem fair that just because my family got here early to lock the door on someone who is now just looking for a better life for his/her descendants.
    But the other side of the coin is money (and fairness). The vast majority of the new immigrants I am sure are decent people who just want to work and contribute. And we should find a way for that to happen. But we should also be fair to the people who came here legally. The illegal immigrants shouldn't be allowed to "jump the line" so to speak.
    And I also think that the "news" stories we get are mostly spin. I don't know where you go for a straight up news story on this or any other issue. If you read a story on CNN or MSNBC and then make your way over to Fox news or National Review and read about the same story, you would be hard pressed to know that you were in fact reading about the same story. The truth about this issue is definitely somewhere in the middle in my opinion.
    Legal immigration needs to be expanded and needs to be fair - our native born women are having less than 2.1 babies each. That doesn't bode well for the future. We need immigration to pick up the slack.
    Illegal immigration should be controlled. If you don't detain the illegal immigrants for at a least a hearing, how do you stop it? Do you just hand them a note and ask them to show back up later for a hearing and possible deportation? I don't think they'll show back up. If you do detain them, I'm not sure how you can safely put adults and children in the same facility. In fact, how do you put women and men in the same facility - safely?
    I don't know. It's a tough issue.
    And as for the wall, it's probably mostly for show. I have read - again take that for what it is worth - that the majority of illegal immigration occurs by folks who are here legally simply overstaying their visas. If true, then a wall isn't going to do much good. You would be better off beefing up immigration security at airports and train stations.
    All the best.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very well said. I agree that it is not an easy problem to solve because we have changed the rules over all those years. I read the other day that a man was sent back even though he was legal. He had a problem with domestic violence many years ago, went to counseling and he had behaved himself after that.

    What is going on? Darn!

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  3. First, I'd like to know what happened to Mexico paying for the wall? Wasn't that the real promise? I say as soon as you get the money from Mexico, like you promised you would, build your big beautiful wall.

    Secondly, Trump's whole strategy seems to be to whip up a problem (Muslim immigrants, DACA, North Korea, China, Canada) and then swoop in to miraculously solve it.

    Loved-One and I went on a nature tour of the Amazon. The biologist in charge gave a lecture on the mating strategies of various frogs. One type of frog whips up a froth of spit and sperm deposits around on leaves, in puddles, on bits of debris, hoping the female frog will leave her eggs near his frothy deposit.

    Every time the President pulls something like this, I just think 'he's working up another pile of spit and sperm.' If anything good comes of it, it'll be because someone else found a way to make it work.

    I'm going to look for "Birth of Illegal Immigration" on History Channel. 1965 is a long time ago for many people, but when it's part of your coming of age period, it's like yesterday.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I have memories of those laws and the period when they went into effect. It was the Vietnam War and the establishment fighting with the flower children. But the establishment was in charge. We are still living with the repercussions of that period. And it is like "yesterday" in so many ways.

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  4. I am in despair over the state of our country, and I don't know what to do about it. I can barely stand to watch the news and so I find solace in reading books about anything other than politics. We live in a terrifying time in America. :-(

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    Replies
    1. Yes we do but helping people like me speak out helps DJan. Share on Facebook etc. Having a voice does help.

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  5. This whole thing makes me outraged every day. It's no way to treat people who are trying to escape being killed in their own country. They don't want to leave their home and their family but need to keep their children safe and they have been stolen away. For some, they may never be reunited with their children. Can you imagine? This shouldn't be partisan with each side blaming each other. (stupid tactic) It should be an American value thing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a matter of values. I just don't think our president got in that line when they were passing out "values" and "ethics".

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