We are told…
Except for Native Americans, we are all immigrants or children
of immigrants.
True enough – true as well for the “Native
Americans.” By the way, open borders didn’t work out so well for
this group.
The entire history of the United States, until recently, is one
of open borders and open immigration.
We are also told. I would like to examine the
validity of this statement.
Before beginning, I offer a very interesting time-lapse map, depicting
immigration into the United States; each dot represents 10,000
people. Visualizing this history will tell you much about what it
meant to be a country of immigrants; more specifically…immigrants…from
where? When? What changed? Why? The
map raises important questions.
To be more complete, I should include social / welfare
legislation in this post as I believe it to be an important part of the
story. But I am already at 2900 words, and I think most readers
understand that this grew significantly during the twentieth century and
especially during the time of Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression and
more so during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson in the
mid-1960s. Further, the differences in open and available land
should be considered.
Unless otherwise noted, sources are identified at the end of
this post.
Colonial Era to 1790
The period from 1607 – 1775 marks the longest sustained period
of meaningful immigration in North American history. Not counting
slaves (who clearly did not come by choice), virtually all of the immigrants
were of northern European and Protestant origin. Large numbers came
as indentured servants (perhaps half or more), with passage paid in exchange
for a fixed term of indenture to the sponsor; not all indentured servants came
voluntarily.
By 1790, it is estimated that there were 950,000 immigrants, of
which 360,000 were from Africa. Of the 590,000 remainder, 425,000
were from Britain and almost 110,000 were from Germany or the
Netherlands. The origins of most of the rest are unknown, but
presumed to be from Northern Europe.
The population by 1790 is estimated to be 3.9 million, of which
757,000 were from Africa. Of the remaining 3.15 million, almost 2.6
million were of British descent. About 370,000 were of German and
Dutch descent; most of the rest are of unknown origin, presumed to be from
northern Europe.
Great Britain exported its convicts to America – about 50,000 up
to the end of the Revolution (Australia got them thereafter).
1790 to 1849
From the beginning of the Revolutionary War until about 1830,
there was little immigration. There was a meaningful emigration from
the US to Canada; about 75,000 British loyalists, but also some German
farmers. The year 1815 might mark the low point in terms of the
percentage of the population that was foreign born – perhaps
1%. Even by 1830, this percentage was estimated at only 2%.
Immigration in some quantity resumed beginning around
1830. The list of countries is similar: Britain, Ireland, Germany,
and other parts of Central Europe as well as Scandinavia. The
numbers from 1831 – 1840 are about 207,000 Irish, about 152,000 Germans, 76,000
British, and 46,000 French.
From 1841 – 1850, there were about 1,713,000 immigrants,
including at least 781,000 Irish, 435,000 Germans, 267,000 British, and 77,000
French. By 1850, the population was about 90% native born; the
percentage of the population that was Catholic doubled in this period – from 5%
to 10%.
The Mexican-American War and subsequent treaty brought about
70,000 formerly Mexican residents into New Mexico and California; the
California Gold Rush brought immigrants from Latin America, China, Australia,
and Europe.
There was a rise of anti-Catholicism in the later part of this
period – against German and Irish Catholic immigrants. Thus was born
the Native American Party (“Native American” having a meaning different than
what we ascribe to it today), renamed the American Party – but commonly known
as the Know Nothing Party – as its members would claim to “know nothing” when
asked about their affiliation.
Immigration during the first five years of the 1850s reached a
level five times greater than a decade earlier. Most of the new arrivals were
poor Catholic peasants or laborers from Ireland and Germany who crowded into
the tenements of large cities. Crime and welfare costs soared. Cincinnati's
crime rate, for example, tripled between 1846 and 1853 and its murder rate
increased sevenfold. Boston's expenditures for poor relief rose threefold
during the same period.
— James
M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 131.
The party gained significant results:
The results of the 1854 elections were so favorable to the Know
Nothings, up to then an informal movement with no centralized organization,
that they formed officially as a political party called the American Party,
which attracted many members of the now nearly defunct Whig party as well as a
significant number of Democrats. Membership in the American Party increased
dramatically, from 50,000 to an estimated one million plus in a matter of
months during that year.
Massachusetts was a stronghold; a chapter was formed in
California, against the rise of Chinese immigrants; the “know nothing” mayor of
Chicago banned immigrants from city jobs.
The party soon lost momentum, as the issue of slavery divided
the country far more than the issue of (primarily) white immigration.
1850 – 1900
In this period, the largest portions of immigrants were from
Germany, Ireland and Britain; French Canadians were also
represented. Shortly after the Civil War, some states began to pass
their own immigration laws; the Supreme Court struck this down in 1875, stating
the immigration was a federal issue. That same year, the Federal
government passed the Page Act – aka the Asian Exclusion Act. This was
followed in 1882 by the Chinese Exclusion Act. The names of these
acts are descriptive of the content.
In 1892, Annie Moore was the first immigrant processed at Ellis
Island. Call it a wall – a big, beautiful wall!
1900 – 1915
The first years of the new century saw an increase in immigrants
from Sweden, Norway, Poland, and Italy. There were also immigrants
from Lebanon and Syria – primarily Christian, but also Jews and
Muslims. There were also about 2 million immigrant Jews from
Russia.
The peak year of legal immigration was 1907, with about 1.3
million entering the country.
New Laws
The twentieth century saw an explosion of laws regulating and
restricting immigration:
Immigration Act of 1917
…was the most sweeping immigration act the United States had
passed until that time. It was the first bill aimed at restricting (as opposed
to regulating) immigrants, and marked a turn toward nativism. The law imposed
literacy tests on immigrants, created new categories of inadmissible persons,
and barred immigration from the Asia-Pacific Zone.
Emergency Quota Act of 1921
…restricted immigration into the United States. Although
intended as temporary legislation, the Act "proved in the long run the
most important turning-point in American immigration policy" because it
added two new features to American immigration law: numerical limits on
immigration and the use of a quota system for establishing those limits. These
limits came to be known as the National Origins Formula.
The Immigration Act of 1924
…was a United States federal law that limited the annual number
of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of
people from that country who were already living in the United States as of the
1890 census, down from the 3% cap set by the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, which
used the Census of 1910. The law was primarily aimed at further restricting
immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans, especially Italians
and Eastern European Jews. In addition, it severely restricted the immigration
of Africans and outright banned the immigration of Arabs and Asians.
Equal Nationality Act of 1934
This law allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and
alien fathers who had entered America before the age of 18 and had lived in
America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time.
Tydings–McDuffie Act
The act reclassified all Filipinos, including those who were
living in the United States, as aliens for the purposes of immigration to
America. A quota of 50 immigrants per year was established.
Nationality Act of 1940
The law revised "the existing nationality laws of the U.S.
into a more complete nationality code"; it defined those persons who were
"eligible for citizenship through birth or naturalization" and
clarified "the status of individuals and their children born or residing
in the continental U.S., its territories such as Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
the Virgin Islands, the Philippines, Panama and the Canal Zone, or
abroad." The law furthermore defined who was not eligible for citizenship,
and how citizenship could be lost or terminated.
McCarran Internal Security Act
The Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 987 (Public Law
81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 or the
McCarran Act, after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), is a
United States federal law. Congress enacted it over President Harry Truman's
veto.
The Act required Communist organizations to register with the
United States Attorney General and established the Subversive Activities
Control Board to investigate persons suspected of engaging in subversive
activities or otherwise promoting the establishment of a "totalitarian
dictatorship," either fascist or communist. Members of these groups could
not become citizens and in some cases were prevented from entering or leaving
the country. Citizens found in violation could lose their citizenship in five
years.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
…also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8
of the United States Code (8 U.S.C. ch. 12), governs immigration to and
citizenship in the United States.
The Act defined three types of immigrants: immigrants with
special skills or relatives of U.S. citizens who were exempt from quotas and
who were to be admitted without restrictions; average immigrants whose numbers
were not supposed to exceed 270,000 per year; and refugees.
The Act allowed the government to deport immigrants or
naturalized citizens engaged in subversive activities and also allowed the
barring of suspected subversives from entering the country.
The back-and-forth of this act is worth considering:
President Harry Truman, a Democrat, vetoed the Act because he
regarded the bill as "un-American" and discriminatory. His veto
message said:
Today, we are "protecting" ourselves as we were in
1924, against being flooded by immigrants from Eastern Europe. This is
fantastic. ... We do not need to be protected against immigrants from these
countries–on the contrary we want to stretch out a helping hand, to save those
who have managed to flee into Western Europe, to succor those who are brave
enough to escape from barbarism, to welcome and restore them against the day
when their countries will, as we hope, be free again....These are only a few
examples of the absurdity, the cruelty of carrying over into this year of 1952
the isolationist limitations of our 1924 law.
In no other realm of our national life are we so hampered and
stultified by the dead hand of the past, as we are in this field of
immigration.
Truman’s last sentence is worth reading twice – immigration
restrictions are part of the national life and history of the nation.
Truman's veto was overridden by a vote of 278 to 113 in the
House and 57 to 26 in the Senate.
Speaking in the Senate
on March 2, 1953, McCarran said:
I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western
civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted,
contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be
extinguished.
There are many Americans who would nod in agreement with this
statement today.
Operation Wetback
That’s the real name!
The program was implemented in May 1954 by U.S. Attorney General
Herbert Brownell and utilized special tactics to deal with illegal border
crossings into the United States by Mexican nationals.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
Until 1965, immigration was virtually all European and all
Christian, with a minor portion from the Americas (to include a good amount
from Canada). This changed with this act.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (H.R. 2580; Pub.L.
89–236, 79 Stat. 911, enacted June 30, 1968), also known as the Hart–Celler
Act, changed the way quotas were allocated by ending the National Origins
Formula that had been in place in the United States since the Emergency Quota
Act of 1921. Representative Emanuel Celler of New York proposed the bill,
Senator Philip Hart of Michigan co-sponsored it, and Senator Ted Kennedy of
Massachusetts helped to promote it.
The Hart–Celler Act abolished the quota system based on national
origins that had been American immigration policy since the 1920s. The 1965 Act
marked a change from past U.S. policy which had discriminated against
non-northern Europeans. In removing racial and national barriers the Act would
significantly, and unintentionally, alter the demographic mix in the U.S.
I suspect some would disagree with that “unintentionally” part.
The Hart–Celler Act of 1965 marked a radical break from the
immigration policies of the past. Previous laws restricted immigration from
Asia and Africa, and gave preference to northern and western Europeans over
southern and eastern Europeans.
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99–603,
100 Stat. 3445, enacted November 6, 1986, also known as the Simpson–Mazzoli
Act, signed into law by Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986, is an Act of
Congress which reformed United States immigration law. The Act:
…required employers to attest to their employees' immigration
status; made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants knowingly;
legalized certain seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants, and; legalized
illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982 and had
resided there continuously…
Conclusion
America has always been hostile to immigrants
Look, I didn’t write that – it comes right from the Washington Post:
You know Ellis Island, the place textbooks portray as the
welcoming ward for generations of dreamers?
“We think of Ellis Island as this great monument to immigration.
It’s really the monument to border control,” says Morris Vogel, president of
the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which painstakingly reconstructs the
squalor and ambition of 19th- and 20th-century immigrants. Ellis Island was,
Vogel notes, “the first wall,” often used to repel undesirables.
Border control…in 1892! But there is more:
Benjamin Franklin denounced the scourge of “swarthy” German
immigrants who refused to speak English, for example.
“In the infancy of the country, with a boundless waste to
people, it was politic to give a facility to naturalization; but our situation
is now changed,” [Alexander Hamilton] wrote in 1802.
My Conclusion
One could say that the United States (and the colonies
beforehand), were reasonably “open borders” until the 1870s, with the more
sweeping regulation beginning in the 1910s. One could also say that
virtually all of the immigration until this point was from Europe, and the bulk
of this from northern and western Europe. One could also say that
the vast majority of immigrants were Christian – not to minimize the conflicts
between Protestants and Catholics.
One could also say that the bulk of the immigrants had to find
their own way – both to get to the country and to carve out a living once they
arrived. This would exclude, of course, slaves and those indentured
servants brought by force – call them white slaves, albeit typically not for
life.
One could say that this fundamentally changed in 1965 – both in
immigration patterns and in social and welfare legislation.
One could say that the United States had reasonably open borders
as long as immigrants were white and Christian; one could say that legislation
began to grow meaningfully when this began to change – in other words, people
grew less fond of open borders when those who immigrated didn’t look and act
like them.
One could say that everything changed beginning in 1965, due to
government forced and subsidized immigration.
One could say all of these things because these are factually
based.
One could not say that the history of the United States is one
of open borders and free immigration; this would be inaccurate without the
following clarification: it was reasonably true when immigrants were
primarily white and Christian; it ceased to be true as this changed.
Epilogue
But…but…but…we are all children of immigrants (again, with the
one reasonable exception).
True. Exponential math explains why this must be
so. For example, from the 24 males on the Mayflower that had
children, 35 million today claim to be
descendent. In other words, the statement is meaningless for a
country that was virtually unpopulated 425 years ago.
Sources:
