Ted Rall for March 13, 2024

It is what I have to do to live in Portugal, Ted.

Time to prise the plaque off the wall on Liberty Island.

Maybe one day you will read Karl Marx’s manifesto, he wrote it while a reporter for the NY Times. Actually works quite well in countries with small populations like Oceania. Outside of there; communism is a smokescreen for oligarchies under dictatorships.

Let ’Em In

So what’s your point?

Yes, in 1924, visas for immigrants from areas like Southern and Eastern Europe were limited, and Asians were no longer admitted to the United States, because the white people already here wanted to preserve this country’s “racial composition”.

But there was an increase in the number of visas made available to individuals from the British Isles and Western Europe. So I guess they were the right kind of white.

But they WERE white.

Tell the whole thing, ted.

My mother’s side of the family were Hungarian, and the immigration officials anglicized their name from Magyar. I’m surprised it didn’t come out as Fitzgerald.

If only the native said that to the colonizers

America would be very different

NINA (no Irish need apply)

Let’s go further. The WASPs went nuts when my ancestors came after the Civil War, and they were Catholic. Eek! Calvin Coolidge signed a restrictive bill favoring Protestants in 1924 while saying, “America must remain American”. Okay, Mister President, when are you going back and leaving the Amerinds here?

A lot of the anti-immigration fanatics don’t seem to realize that their ancestors did not “enter legally” by today’s standards. Standards then meant, indeed, you DID just “show up” and they let you in.

It wasn’t until fairly late they started imposing more constraints, and the constraints were based on nothing but racism: Chinese on the West Coast, and Eastern Europeans (especially Jews) on the East Coast. The Eastern European restriction was based in part on terrible IQ data, believe it or not (you can read the whole story in The Mismeasure of Man, by the late, great Stephen Jay Gould), but more of it was racism pure and simple.

Are we getting a lot of illegal immigrants? Indeed we are. If the opportunity did not exist, they would not, as indeed immigration went down when the economy did. But if we had sane immigration laws, the issue would disappear. We don’t. They are racist and antiquated and a ridiculously bureaucratic process, maintained by a party that claims to be for “smaller government,” but only uses that argument when it comes to the health and welfare of human beings.

We have always relied on immigration to grow this nation. Today, we rely on so-called “illegals” to harvest our food – that’s why George W. Bush pushed for legal entry passes for migrant workers; he was governor of Texas. So this whole debate is merely cynical opportunism on the part of the Republicans, and the Democrats have fallen into the trap (again) of playing within the GOP’s framing.

Want to end illegal immigration? 1 year in jail and a $10,000 fine for each and every illegal immigrant someone hires. The jobs disappear and with them the incentive to risk life and limb to get here.

In the early ’20s at least, to get past the Ellis gatekeepers, would-be immigrants had to show that they had money in their pockets or that they had a sponsor.

There were scammers who came on board the ships and would rent a roll of high-denom bills to show the gatekeeper. Georgi Papashvili from Georgia who spoke only Georgian and Russian, paid the only money he had – $5 – to rent from one, and successfully got in, stone broke with no one waiting for him.

Tell that to the passengers on the St. Louis

So Ted supports an open southern border….10 million in 3 years.

Yep, that’s pretty much it. Although, my family wasn’t completely enfranchised as white until the ‘70s when Desegregation (Bussing) started. I remember how proud some of my uncles were when their racial prejudice was welcomed by those Protestants on the other side of town. It was like “Welcome to the Club”, but not really. That would have been socially unacceptable even if they had money.

Why not? Melania did, using the ‘Genius Visa’ scam (musta been the pregnant nude fotos).

Well, whitish. Not quite the pure white we wanted

Ted and Scott generally get the idea of immigration and its overall positive effect upon our economy correct on their podcasts.

Just had to throw this in, from the historian Neil Sadaka:

Now he arrvies with hopes and his heart set on miracles

Come to marry his fortune with a hand full of promises

To find they’ve closed the door they don’t want him anymore

There isn’t anymore to go around

Turning away he remembers he once heard a legend

That spoke of a mystical magical land called America

It was time when strangers were welcome here

Music would play they tell me the days were sweet and clear

It was a sweeter tune and there was so much room

That people could come from everywhere

You mean Ellis Island that is now a museum partly redressing the wrongs of the past. We have always been xenophobic. I know, I am Irish.

Well, even in the old days when Ellis Island was a major hub of immigrant arrival, many were sent back for many reasons including illness. We didn’t just take anybody back then and now.

Actually, the Irish and the Italians were NOT considered white. Which shows how arbitrary the designation “white” is.

And the Irish really had it hard, because they were earlier. They were Catholic, which meant they were poisoning our precious culture. There are editorial cartoons of bishops who look like crocodiles invading the Unite States.

They were retroactively granted whiteness. There’s a difference.

Immigration has always been net positive in America.

The republican House is holding our border open on the orders of Trump and Putin.

To be honest, there were no rules for coming through Ellis Island until well into the 20th Century. Your health was checked and information was documented, and there wasn’t much more than that.

Exactly.

Yes, it’s amazing how many of the people furious about the arrivals at the border are unaware that this is how their own ancestors likely arrived.

Trump will probably ship the Statue of Liberty back to France.

Many who showed up at Ellis Island were quarantined and/or sent back.

So your family is going hungry . . . You can still wait ten years for us to get through your paperwork.

Stephen Miller wants to reinterpret the meaning of that plaque. Let’s keep him out of office. Vote blue in November.

People are still talking about voting green or independent, or not at all, or some other thing. That’s what they did when it was Clinton vs trump.

Clinton wasn’t pure enough, so this country got trump. And despite all that happened, they’re gonna put trump in office again.

Yeah, that’ll send a message.

If the “Land of the Free” had not interferred militarily in South and Central Americans’ economy and governance, perhaps ordinary folks would be okay staying there.

I believe this regarding the Jews who were turned back to Hitler Germany.