That drunk killer @#$@#$ kennedy!! I didn’t know that!!!
how did republicans allow that?
I just thought western Europeans had no reason to come anymore!!!
more of my paisani could have been here??
I hate dems.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1436455/posts
Tracing Liberal Woes to 1965 Immigration Act (or, how Ted Kennedy destroyed America)
http://www.cis.org/articles/1995/olg12-28-95.html ^
What went wrong with liberalism? Current and former liberals, like myself, should be even more interested in this puzzle than conservatives are. There are no simple answers nor a single pivotal moment of error, but the 30th anniversary this month of the 1965 Immigration Act illuminates the issue.
The Immigration Act was given only modest attention at its inception and even less in histories of the Great Society. In retrospect, however, it can be seen as perhaps the single most nation-changing measure of the era. The Hart-Celler Act, as it was called at the time, abolished the national origins quota system installed in the 1920s, shifting the basis for selection from an applicant’s nation of birth to his or her family relationships or skills.
A few critics questioned whether the new legislation, originally launched by President John F. Kennedy, would enlarge the immigrant flow and shift it from Europe to Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Supporters emphatically denied this. “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society,” Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said. Attorney General Robert Kennedy predicted 5,000 immigrants from the entire Asia-Pacific Triangle, “after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear.”
“The effect of the bill on our population [in numbers] would be quite insignificant,” Rep. Emanuel Celler, the act’s co-sponsor, said.
The importance of the law lay not in any change in immigration’s volume or composition, sponsors said, but in its overdue elimination of the odious discrimination in US immigration law in favor of or against people on the basis of where they were born. The 1965 law was thus seen more as an extension of the civil rights movement than an immigration measure.
But 30 years later, it’s clear that the assurances of the law’s sponsors were untrue. The number of legal immigrants immediately jumped to 400,000, then to 800,000 by 1980, and reached well over 1 million in the early 1990s, when those given amnesty in 1986 and their relatives are added to the total. Illegal immigrants add 300,000 or more annually, many coming to join legally admitted relatives. Total immigration last year was 1.2 million, according to Center for Immigration Studies calculations. What’s worse, the number of legal admissions is set by statute, unrelated to overall economic trends such as unemployment.
Many Americans did object, but Kennedy lied through his teeth. He said, "What the bill will not do: First our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same...Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset...Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [this bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area."
Yes, back then Americans could actually express concern about being flooded with immigrants and the ethnic mix of the country being upset! Most Americans would never dare express such concerns now. Everything Kennedy said wouldn't happen has happened. And all those immigrants who flooded here cannot be "offended." Americans can no longer speak their minds without losing their jobs, having their reputations ruined, and/or being forced to apologize and grovel.
Thanks, Teddy, you evil, lying, murdering drunk.