With all the attention to immigration dominating the news, I think St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 might be a time to reflect on the history of immigration in the United States.
Anti-immigrant sentiment was high in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. “No Irish Need Apply” was common on help wanted signs and in newspaper ads. Immigration quotas were established limiting immigrants from countries in southern and eastern Europe, as they were deemed undesirable. Immigration from Asian countries was banned completely. (Sound a bit familiar?)
Recent letters in this paper supporting the POTUS and all the “Make America Great Again” with the emphasis on extreme vetting of refugees seem to suggest that that vetting is something invented by the current administration and that under previous administrations, people, including terrorists were allowed to pour into the country. Certainly there has to be procedures but Congress established screening procedures for refugees in 1980.
Since 2001 the process for people from Middle Eastern or Muslim countries to get into U.S. has become even more rigorous. People wait anywhere from 18 to 24 months; often longer if from these countries. There is plenty of information available on this process, even on conservative websites.
The fear of Muslim immigrants is as unjustified as the fear of immigrants was 100 years ago. Major terrorist attacks in recent years have all been perpetrated by U.S. citizens or legal residents, none from the countries in the original travel ban. The justification for the travel ban was just politicking to unwarranted fears.
Have so many people in this country forgotten that unless they are of Native American heritage, they descend from immigrants, perhaps from one of the groups deemed undesirable?
Nancy Wasik
Bemidji and Poplar Lake
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