Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"- Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus.”
When I was brought up in school, I was taught the myth of the American melting pot. According to its principles, immigrants from all over the world came to this country seeking to escape persecution abroad and to live their lives as they wanted, away from prejudicial attitudes. While some of that story indeed is true, recent scholarship has proven that the concept was far less prevalent than we might want it to be. The Puritans who came ashore in Massachusetts Bay might stake a more honest, truthful claim to this particular trope, but very shortly thereafter, members of very different ethnic groups came ashore, and produced ample friction with each other.
Skip forward in time and we see evidence of “whiteness”, particularly how it was perceived by those in power. Noel Ignatiev’s 1995 book How the Irish Became White explains how precisely how hard the Irish fought so-called native born WASPs for the right to a seat at the table. Not long after that, Italian-American fought for the same privileges. Jews, many of who were escaping pogroms in present-day Russia also waged these same battles. German immigrants were stigmatized severely during World War I. Japanese immigrants were forced into resettlement camps during World War II, by a paranoid American government who was fearful that they were all really clandestine spies for the Empire of Japan.
We know many of these stories already. But they have their antecedents way back to the beginning of the United States as we know it.
Our Second President, John Adams, pushed through the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts.
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. They made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen (Naturalization Act), allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous ("An Act Concerning Aliens", also known as the Alien Friends Act of 1798) or who were from a hostile nation (Alien Enemy Act of 1798), and criminalized making 'false statements' critical of the federal government (Sedition Act of 1798). The Alien Friends Act expired two years after its passage, and the Sedition Act expired on 3 March 1801, while the Naturalization Act and Alien Enemies Act had no expiration clause.
The Federalists argued that the bills strengthened national security during the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war with France from 1798 to 1800. Critics argued that they were primarily an attempt to suppress voters who disagreed with the Federalist party and its teachings, and violated the right of freedom of speech in the First Amendment.
Not much of a melting pot there, even from the very outset of our country’s history. In fact, if one examines the history of every non-”white” ethnic group, one can probably find incidents of flagrant discrimination and exclusionary immigration policies. Minority groups were often subjected to strict quotas, depending whichever Administration or Party happened to be in power at the time.
Speaking only a few years before he ascended to the Presidency, Abraham Lincoln wrote to a friend of his at a time about the rise of the Know-Nothing Party, a strictly anti-immigrant party popular in the 1850’s.
August 24, 1855: Letter to Joshua F. Speed
I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes, and Foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
In time of great change, like ours, anti-immigrant sentiment will always rear its ugly head. Direct inciter of the Capitol riot, U.S House Representative, and potential Senator from here in Alabama, Mo Brooks, is now predictably crying foul about Biden’s efforts towards comprehensive immigration policy. I would expect nothing less from a cry-baby, sore loser, political tool who is very lucky he doesn’t face criminal charges for inciting a riot.
Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks has joined other Republican lawmakers calling on Dr. Anthony Fauci to use his influence to stop “a dangerous new foreign pipeline for COVID-19 along America’s Mexican border.
The March 12 letter from Brooks and other lawmakers also seeks action from the director of the National Institutes for Health saying the Biden administration has resumed “the dangerous immigration policy of ‘catch and release’” along the border.
We have been kicking the immigration can down the road from Administration to Administration. Much like this massive COVID stimulus bill, we prove ourselves only willing to act correctly and justly when our backs are against the wall. In a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill, which history has proven was probably first said by Abba Eban, “you can depend upon Americans to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”
Biden’s policy has drawn negative criticism, even from members of his own party, but with strict qualifiers.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a longtime border Democrat from Laredo, Texas, criticized the Biden administration for rolling back some Trump-era immigration policies too quickly and opening more holding facilities too slowly.
But Cuellar also criticized people “who try to invoke fear” about immigrants, particularly children
“If you’re afraid of a little kid, a 7-year-old, then I think you fear your own shadow,” he said.
In Brooks’ mind, and in the minds of many Republicans, they are afraid of children who might one day vote them out of power. They couldn’t care less about whether they are spreaders of the coronavirus. Theirs is a cynical policy which reveals a country that they know will soon be comprised of a plurality of voters, based on a variety of ethnic groups, one no longer dominated by a white majority. And as I have noted earlier in this post, there will always be someone in charge who points to the specter of the “other” as the bogeyman. The race has not yet concluded, but I feel confident that Democrats are in a much better position now than they have occupied in years.