There are two statues, in two different countries, which honor Annie Moore. One is in Ireland, the other in the United States. Annie Moore was not great philanthropist, nor was she a scientist, a great leader or educator. She spent most of her life a housewife and full time mother, having had 11 children, five of whom survived -- no wonder she died at the age of 47 in 1924.
The reason Annie was honored is simple. The young girl, with her two younger brothers, had left Ireland as immigrants to America, where they would join their parents, already here. Annie was the first person to enter the country through the famous Ellis Island immigration station. She was certainly not the first Irish immigrant, nor the last.
In truth, she was just one of 2.5 million immigrants who fled starvation and poverty in Ireland to come to America. They were not welcomed with open arms. What they faced was hostility. The anti-immigrant feelings were even more blatant than those we see directed at Mexicans today. Employers openly stated "No Irish Need Apply" when they offered jobs. These immigrants were poor, mostly uneducated and perhaps most terrifying of all, Catholic. This "threat" spread fear among American Protestants and a mass movement, the Know Nothings, came into existence. The name came from a promise by members, that if asked about the organization, they were to say they "know nothing" about it.
These anti-immigrant activists organized the American Party, and successfully ran candidates around the country, pledged to stamp out the evils of immigration. The complaints that were made about Irish immigrants are pretty similar to those we hear today about Mexican immigrants. The xenophobes insisted the Irish were lazy, prone to crime, drank too much, and were stealing jobs from good white Americans. And, of course, they were also Catholics, in cahoots with the Vatican to take control of the United States and stamp out Protestantism, for good measure.
Of course, it wasn't only the Irish who were hated. Anti-immigrant activists also targeted Germans. They were displeased that so many German language newspapers existed and that many Germans still spoke their native language, even when living in the United States. Anti-Asian feelings were strong in the West as well.
These immigrants, for the most part, came to America to improve their lives and the lives of their children. That is what they were looking for. I suspect not much has changed since then, at least not in way of motivation. But today the hurdles to legal immigration are so onerous that few would-be immigrants can surmount them.
The earliest of my ancestors, came to America in an unusual way. He walked here. Most immigrants came by boat, but he was a French Canadian who walked into the United States. His motivations also seemed a bit different than most. He came to the United States in order to fight in the Civil War against the slave-holding South. His goal was the abolition of slavery, but he stayed after that job was completed.
Another ancestor sailed to the United States from Sweden and made his way to the Mid-West. All my immigrant ancestors came to America during a time when immigration was bureaucratically simple. This is what so many anti-immigrant Americans forget, when they talk about how their "ancestors came to America legally." Of course, they did. Back then it was easy to immigrate legally and damn hard to immigrate illegally. The hardest part of immigration during the 19th century was the boat trip, or the walk from Canada, as the case may be.
Today, very few Americans would say this country would be better off without those 2.5 million Irish immigrants. Had we cut them off, we would have lost their children, or grandchildren -- people such as Gene Kelly, Diamond Jim Brady, Henry Ford, Walt Disney, Tom Clancy, Grover Cleveland, Ronald Reagan, and millions of hard-working, but lesser-known individuals, who built this country.
Certainly, while they were immigrating, there was no shortage of politicians ready to damn the Irish and predict disasters they would inflict on America, yet today you would be hard pressed to find one politician, of any stature, willing to say Irish immigration was a bad thing.
What baffles me is why the modern Know Nothings, with their Tea Party rallies and anti-immigration rhetoric, assume their perceptions are so much more accurate than their compadres in the 1800s. Personally, I suspect that these modern advocates of closing the immigration door are no more likely to be correct. History does repeat itself, or at the very least, bad ideas continue to come back, over and over, just with different labels attached. And the bad ideas are no more correct, a century later, than they were during the first round of this debate.
Scott Hill: If you Want to Boost the Economy, Don't Knock Immigration
Immigration law author tells farmers: No changes
Napolitano to promote DHS work on immigration
Alabama: Students dont need birth certificates
Pennsylvania Enters Immigration Debate with Undoc. Immigrant Bill
Whereas, today's immigrants do back-breaking work that benefits all of us.
http://www.ojjpac.org/memorial.asp
The same can be said for you.
If "illegals" truly want to have a say in what laws are passed then they need to return home and apply to become a U.S. Citizen then they can spread their word and have their vote counted. Until then they have no voice.
You and the other columnists that are trying to use your biassed POV's blaiming the "whites" as you say. Well here in AL even the African Americans wanted this law. Have you looked at the population of AL? Majority rules.
1. The Mexican elite have calculated that by exporting their uneducated, sick and criminal population to the US, they can retain their classist status quo. The practice works because US employers exploit these workers for profit.
2. Republican and Democratic strategists manipulate language and incite emotionalism and sentiment in order to garner votes.
3. The US has a liberal, legal immigration policy already in place, including a Guest Worker program.
4. If conservatives impeached Bill Clinton and liberals think that GW Bush should be indicted for war crimes, based on the premise that NO ONE IS ABOVE the law, then it follows that everyone in the country must follow the law, regardless of sentiment or heritage.
5. This isn't about *immigration* and certainly not related to the romantic notions about our immigrant ancestors. We're talking about a mass-migration of people from Mexico, Central and South America that, if left unchecked,will overwhem our health care, safety and social service systems. (re: Camp of the Saints.)
Fast forward 30 years: El Paso will be Mexico City and Chicago will be El Paso.
Then you would be wrong. And that is the fundamental flaw of your incredibly inept hypothesis. When Irish, German, and Italian immigrants were flooding the US shores, the US was in a period of RAPID growth and the country had no massive welfare state, only private churches and charities to benefit the poor.
Thus the majority of the immigrants joined an increasing labor force and because they were forced to be self-reliant they became self-made and pushed themselves up to successively higher generations of wealth.
Have you heard the chants, read the slogans of what Illegal (another key component that you left out of your little tirade, the majority of those immigrants came over legally) immigrants want today? "Free healthcare", "Free Education." Those were actual signs at a rally I attended. What did the immigrants of the late 19th century want... A chance to work and build wealth.
Do not even try to compare as your analysis is the equivalent of a third graders.
Thus the majority of the immigrants joined an increasing labor force and because they were forced to be self-reliant they became self-made and pushed themselves up to successively higher generations of wealth."
That did not stop the nativists from calling the immigrants all sorts of dirty names, much as they do today.
Most of their rhetoric was based on lies then, as it is now.
No, even back then when there was no TV, no cable, no satellite, no internet, radio was not even invented until the late 1800s, truly only telegraph and newspapers, the foreign nationals learned what the legal entry point was for the USA, and they entered the USA the legal way.
Nope.
Next time read the actual analysis then comment. Otherwise we completely agree that both sets of immigrants faced discrimination. Thanks for agreeing with me.
It's never been clear to me what "privileges" immigrants are getting. Their children get to go to school? Health care? My friend with the citrus groves provides minimal health care and no school. Those people move from harvest to harvest and region to region so not much chance for school. Maybe the concern is the cleaning ladies and gardeners and men standing outside Home Depot. They try not to miss work for health reasons, and if they're very sick they could lose a day waiting in a county emergency room. Same thing with their children. Single mothers, legal or illegal, will lose hourly work if they have to stay home and care for a sick child. The services we taxpayers provide are minimal and nothing close to "privileged." Better than where they came from? Yes. But not enough to bankrupt us.
I don't know anyone, any American, who wants to compete with these people for the work that they do. They're not taking jobs away. They're doing work that Americans refuse to do.
Not true with work we take away from Americans and ship overseas. That's where the focus should be, not on immigration.
2] Anyone that compares Ellis Island's opening in January 2, 1892, to the year 2011 in the USA, may as well compare Rome in 753 B.C., to Rome in 117 A.D. The USA was not developed in the late 1800s, in contrast to 2011.
Anyone that does not understand that, is being dishonest.
A.H.
"Today, very few Americans would say this country would be better off without those 2.5 million Irish immigrants." should read as follows:
"Today, very few Americans would say this country would be better off without those 2.5 million Irish LEGAL immigrants but a majority would say that we should do today what we did back then and then went on to become a great country - enforce the immigration laws."
It is incredibly ignorant of history to speak of those immigrants as being "legal" since there was no real possibility to be any other kind of immigrant. We went from a nation that allowed almost anyone, to immigrate freely, to one that blocks almost everyone who wants to do so. What changed is the legal system. Making something a crime, that previous was not one, does not prove that modern immigrants are more crime prone, only that government has become more obtrusive, bigger and that the regulatory state is taking away freedoms that once existed.
In terms of your other comment that has not appeared yet, what you wrote to me, I had already said as much and more, but you would of actually had to drill into the comments and read a bit, even those above.
In terms of what you wrote here, and what you said to me earlier. I disagree with what you just wrote here, as well what you wrote to me within the last 15 minutes, and in the interest of my time, I would like you to read all the Library of Congress laws that are listed at this link as support that I believe you to be incorrect.
http://library.uwb.edu/guides/USimmigration/USimmigrationlegislation.html
I do wonder if you have actually read all of what is at that link. USA laws did not begin in 1892 regarding foreign nationals entering the USA. Even before 1875, individual states had immigration laws, and if I had more time, I would give you those as well.
Not to mention of course that real unemployment is 16%, Black unemployment about 25%, and that the Country is bankrupt. I am sure now that none of those things enter into the mind of the hateful racists that oppose illegal immigration. Racism, pure and simple, thats all it is.
For the love of God, where do they GET such crazy ideas....? I mean these 'xenophobes' are just crazy, wacky...
Few are objective about this question, they simply ignore the measures and refuse to set standards
for Legal Immigration, let alone Illegals ?
So we make our way on Sentiments ! And stealing from ourselves.
ANYONE that looks at the 2nd to last page of this report...
http://www.bls.gov/ore/pdf/ec090020.pdf
...will see that the USA has had an 11-year unemployment problem, there was only a slight improvement during a USA housing bubble around the year 2006, but since that was extraordinary, it should be removed from that chart.
The USA has had an OVERSUPPLIED labor market for 20 of the last 22 years. If you need evidence of that SEE: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATE and you will see only 2 times in 22 years when the USA was approaching a need for adding to the labor force, the other 20 years the USA had an oversupplied labor force.
The USA has 46,180,000 people living in poverty
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032011/pov/new46_100125_01.htm
~ The USA has more than 14 million people that are unemployed
~ The USA has some 3-5 million that are considered discouraged workers and are not counted in either the USA labor force or the USA unemployment total, it is because they could not get a job interview or job after trying for years.
~ The USA has some 10 million that are considered underemployed, meaning people with a Bachelor's degree or better, or decades of experience, holding a job that is considered unskilled, or minimum wage, when we have 10s of millions in the USA that needs those unskilled minimum wage jobs
Would you like to know why. HERE'S an easy to follow chart of our current immigration laws. Read it and think about it the next time someone says that people should just "wait in line" or "play by the rules like my ancestors did":
http://reason.org/files/a87d1550853898a9b306ef458f116079.pdf
Btw, I'm still for enforcing our immigration laws, but I'm also for reforming them so that there are provisions that allow unskilled workers to come here LEGALLY to work. We already know that people are willing to come here illegally to work; why not create a mechanism that keeps them from slipping through the cracks and staying in the underground economy?
This is for green card
"Unskilled Workers (Other Workers)"
"You must be capable, at the time the petition is filed on your behalf, of performing unskilled labor (requiring less than 2 years training or experience), that is not of a temporary or seasonal nature, for which qualified workers are not available in the United States."
"Labor certification and a permanent, full-time job offer required."
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=74da83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=74da83453d4a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD
This is to work in the USA, without a green card, if you are unskilled
Low skilled
1) H-2A
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-2A_Visa
2) H-2b
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=d1d333e559274210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=d1d333e559274210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD
3) H3
http://www.messersmithlaw.com/work-visa/h3-visa.html
"You must be capable, at the time the petition is filed on your behalf, of performing unskilled labor (requiring less than 2 years training or experience), that is not of a temporary or seasonal nature, for which qualified workers are not available in the United States."
"Labor certification and a permanent, full-time job offer required."
So how many of those poor, unskilled European immigrants arrived at Ellis Island with a full time job offer already in hand and the ability to perform a job for which there were no qualified Americans available? Yeah, I thought so.
And I'm aware of those other options (H2A and H2B), but they don't provide a path to a green card and permanent residency, which is why they were irrelevant for the comparison I was making.
posted Oct 7, 2011 at 07:05:08
"NOPE. You do not get to control this exchange to suit your purpose. Your demands are not an argument, make arguments. Your opinion about facts, is just that, it is not an argument."
If nothing else, you're good for irony. So if my opinions aren't an argument, then you should easily be able to refute the following point for which I devoted 2 paragraphs and a link in my initial post:
if today's laws existed ~100 years ago, most or all of those poor, unskilled European immigrants who came through Ellis Island and other ports of entry (i.e. YOUR ancestors) would've been considered illegal.
*****
Refute it. Don't waste time with some explanation of America's demographic/population changes. Just refute it.
As for my REQUEST (there was no authoritative tone or sense of entitlement, so it's not a "demand") regarding immigration reform, it's acknowledgment that farmers and other employers of low skill jobs have a steep litmus test to pass prior to taking advantage of H-2As:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/us/farmers-strain-to-hire-american-workers-in-place-of-migrant-labor.html?_r=2&hp
“Farmers have to bear almost all the labor market risk because they must prove no one really was available, qualified or willing to work,” said Dawn D. Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University. “But the only way to offer proof is to literally have a field left unharvested.”