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Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Congress Needs a Push
As things stand now, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) all support Senate passage of a comprehensive immigration bill before the end of May. So does the business community, most labor unions and religious organizations. Public opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans would like to see a legalization program coupled with strong enforcement of our immigration laws.
Editor's Note: The bill before the Senate is far from perfect. It contains a number of virulently anti-immigrant provisions which should be removed from the legislation before the final vote.
See
http://bibdaily.com/pdfs/NYLJ%20BIB%...CIR%20bill.pdf
and
http://www.nationalimmigrationprojec...0206_final.pdf
So why isn't the enactment of such a law a fait accompli? Probably because a small, but extremely vocal, minority of our citizenry and their allies in the media and in Congress are busy trying their best to scare the living daylights out of Americans who are afraid that our country is being "invaded" by illegal aliens.
Make no mistake about it, this debate is about race, about prejudice and about fear of the foreigner. And truth be told, every new wave of immigration to the United States has always been accompanied by such fears.
Not long after the United States was founded, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were enacted for political purposes. See
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyame...ones/sedition/
When the first Irish immigrants started arriving in the U.S., people founded the openly anti-Catholic "Know Nothing" party which flourished in the 1850s. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know-Nothing_movement
Then, after the transcontinental railroad was completed due to the efforts of thousands of Chinese laborers, and Chinese men where being lynched in California for working for law wages, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which effectively halted most Chinese immigration to the U.S. for over seventy years. See
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/C/Chines-exc.asp
In 1908, the U.S. reached the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Japan to restrict Japanese workers from entering the U.S. See
http://www.historycentral.com/Documents/Gentleman.html
After an influx of immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe starting in the 1880s, a detailed study of the "immigration problem" ordered by the U. S. Senate and conducted under its auspices reported to the American people in 42 data-laden volumes in 1911. The Dillingham Commission (which included a number of professors from Ivy League Universities) took three years, employed a staff of 300, and spent a million dollars to develop a "Dictionary of Races," and to conclude that "the recent immigrants as a whole . . . present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stock." As a result, Congress passed the National Origins Act of 1921 and the Immigration Quota Act of 1924 which severely restricted the number of Italians, Jews and Poles who were permitted to enter the U.S. These acts also made Asians "racially ineligible" to become naturalized citizens of the U.S.
The Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), found that while Indians were indeed anthropologically Caucasian, the framers of the Constitution could never have intended letting them enter the country and be naturalized. Justice Sutherland stated that while "it may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today."
Again, in 1934, the Supreme Court interpreted the Naturalization Law of 1790 to define "white peoples within the meaning of the statute (as) members of the Caucasian race as defined in the understanding of the mass of men. The term excludes the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindus, the American Indians, and the Filipinos."
Also, in 1934, to effectively stop Filipino immigration to the U.S., Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act which reclassified Filipinos from U.S. nationals into "aliens" and capped the number of Filipinos eligible to immigrate to the U.S. at 50 per year. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tydings-McDuffie_Act
Today, Hispanics are the immigrant group being demonized. This is not a new phenomenon. Mexican agricultural laborers were brought into the U.S. under the inhumane and exploitive Bracero program from 1942 to 1964. See
http://www.farmworkers.org/bracerop.html
At the same time, tens of thousands of Mexicans and their U.S. citizen children were deported from the United States under the infamous "Operation Wetback" program in the late 1940s and early 1950s. See
http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/hi...meline/20.html
It is clear that race, religion and nationality have always figured prominently in U.S. immigration policy.
We hope that Congress will remain true to our nation's ideals and pass the comprehensive immigration reform bill now pending in the Senate. The sight of millions of people demonstrating in favor of the bill tomorrow may help our elected representatives see the light.
In response to the efforts of a radical fringe which would deny legalization to today's undocumented workers, we reply to them with the words of the man who became the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan:
"America stands unique in the world, the only country not founded on race, but on a way - an ideal. Not in spite of, but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. This is the American way."
Long Live The United States Of America !
SOURCE:
http://www.shusterman.com/siu.html
As things stand now, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) all support Senate passage of a comprehensive immigration bill before the end of May. So does the business community, most labor unions and religious organizations. Public opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans would like to see a legalization program coupled with strong enforcement of our immigration laws.
Editor's Note: The bill before the Senate is far from perfect. It contains a number of virulently anti-immigrant provisions which should be removed from the legislation before the final vote.
See
http://bibdaily.com/pdfs/NYLJ%20BIB%...CIR%20bill.pdf
and
http://www.nationalimmigrationprojec...0206_final.pdf
So why isn't the enactment of such a law a fait accompli? Probably because a small, but extremely vocal, minority of our citizenry and their allies in the media and in Congress are busy trying their best to scare the living daylights out of Americans who are afraid that our country is being "invaded" by illegal aliens.
Make no mistake about it, this debate is about race, about prejudice and about fear of the foreigner. And truth be told, every new wave of immigration to the United States has always been accompanied by such fears.
Not long after the United States was founded, the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were enacted for political purposes. See
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyame...ones/sedition/
When the first Irish immigrants started arriving in the U.S., people founded the openly anti-Catholic "Know Nothing" party which flourished in the 1850s. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know-Nothing_movement
Then, after the transcontinental railroad was completed due to the efforts of thousands of Chinese laborers, and Chinese men where being lynched in California for working for law wages, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which effectively halted most Chinese immigration to the U.S. for over seventy years. See
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/C/Chines-exc.asp
In 1908, the U.S. reached the so-called "Gentlemen's Agreement" with Japan to restrict Japanese workers from entering the U.S. See
http://www.historycentral.com/Documents/Gentleman.html
After an influx of immigration from Southern, Central and Eastern Europe starting in the 1880s, a detailed study of the "immigration problem" ordered by the U. S. Senate and conducted under its auspices reported to the American people in 42 data-laden volumes in 1911. The Dillingham Commission (which included a number of professors from Ivy League Universities) took three years, employed a staff of 300, and spent a million dollars to develop a "Dictionary of Races," and to conclude that "the recent immigrants as a whole . . . present a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities than do the older stock." As a result, Congress passed the National Origins Act of 1921 and the Immigration Quota Act of 1924 which severely restricted the number of Italians, Jews and Poles who were permitted to enter the U.S. These acts also made Asians "racially ineligible" to become naturalized citizens of the U.S.
The Supreme Court of the United States in U.S. v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), found that while Indians were indeed anthropologically Caucasian, the framers of the Constitution could never have intended letting them enter the country and be naturalized. Justice Sutherland stated that while "it may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today."
Again, in 1934, the Supreme Court interpreted the Naturalization Law of 1790 to define "white peoples within the meaning of the statute (as) members of the Caucasian race as defined in the understanding of the mass of men. The term excludes the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindus, the American Indians, and the Filipinos."
Also, in 1934, to effectively stop Filipino immigration to the U.S., Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act which reclassified Filipinos from U.S. nationals into "aliens" and capped the number of Filipinos eligible to immigrate to the U.S. at 50 per year. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tydings-McDuffie_Act
Today, Hispanics are the immigrant group being demonized. This is not a new phenomenon. Mexican agricultural laborers were brought into the U.S. under the inhumane and exploitive Bracero program from 1942 to 1964. See
http://www.farmworkers.org/bracerop.html
At the same time, tens of thousands of Mexicans and their U.S. citizen children were deported from the United States under the infamous "Operation Wetback" program in the late 1940s and early 1950s. See
http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/hi...meline/20.html
It is clear that race, religion and nationality have always figured prominently in U.S. immigration policy.
We hope that Congress will remain true to our nation's ideals and pass the comprehensive immigration reform bill now pending in the Senate. The sight of millions of people demonstrating in favor of the bill tomorrow may help our elected representatives see the light.
In response to the efforts of a radical fringe which would deny legalization to today's undocumented workers, we reply to them with the words of the man who became the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan:
"America stands unique in the world, the only country not founded on race, but on a way - an ideal. Not in spite of, but because of our polyglot background, we have had all the strength in the world. This is the American way."
Long Live The United States Of America !
SOURCE:
http://www.shusterman.com/siu.html
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