Posted on 06/05/2019 1:28:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
My paternal grandmother Masha was a Russian serf. Her happiest moment in the old country was a spell in prison after she was arrested by the Tsar’s police for a religious crime. She had bathed one of her kids (three boys and a girl) upstream in a creek where the Tsarevich was being baptized. She loved the jail. Food twice a day, and a roof. When told that she had served out her sentence, she protested. Wasn’t there some way she could stay longer?
Yet, she had to go back to her shanty, her husband, and the four offspring. But she was determined to get out, and in 1906 she somehow managed to book a passage to New York, passed the Ellis Island exams, and, with virtually no money, and not a word of English, found lodging in Harlem.
Not the sort of immigrants we seem to be recruiting nowadays. After a few years in Harlem, where my father was born, Masha moved them to Toledo, Ohio, where she opened a little store that sold candy and newspapers. Amos Jacobs, who later gained fame as Danny Thomas, was a regular. All three boys went to college, and fathered children who did post-graduate work. All three were engineers.
No one would have predicted that Masha’s family would be such a success. By the standards of the new immigration code, they would not have been admitted. We want people who are trained in high tech, people who can enrich the tycoons of Silicon Valley. I’m all for that, but I’m also a strong believer that we should welcome those seeking a better life, the so-called “economic immigrants.”
Which is why I don’t believe our government, or any other, can reliably predict which people to accept, and which to keep out, just on the basis of their current abilities to go to work for Google or Facebook. Their children and grandchildren may turn out to be important contributors. We just don’t know how they are going to work out. My grandparents sure didn’t look like desirables at the start of the twentieth century, nor did millions of others who wanted in.
If we don’t have the wisdom to predict who will make good citizens, we do know at least some who won’t. We don’t want those who are indoctrinated in the various cults of radical Islam. Kids who have been “educated” in the madrassas of the Wahhabi fanatics, those who believe that all wisdom was handed down in the Koran and Mohammed’s hadiths, and who believe that sharia “law” is more important than constitutional law, are not likely to assimilate into American society. We don’t want immigrants who are going to create separate communities that reject the basic principles of our country.
Hence President Trump has long been on the right track in trying to block the inpouring of radical Muslims. Just as it was right to block committed Communists because we knew they would subvert American democracy, it is right to block those who will subvert democracy for other reasons. I don’t think that we should welcome Antifa leaders and activists. And I think the overwhelming majority of Americans agree. Don’t you?
Finally, if I’m right, we simply must insist on legal immigration, and stop the illegals. Otherwise we’re going to replicate the failed European open borders policies of recent years. In case you hadn’t noticed, those miserable policies have been roundly rejected in country after country, from Great Britain to Hungary. We don’t want to go through a similar convulsion.
Presumably, his grandmother did not have her journey paid by the US Government, or some political lobbying group looking to fill the country with Russian Jews. Was she part of a multinational gang? I assume She was not given free food, healthcare or housing. Did she claim benefits of a refugee and dispossesed person, while returning to Russia for 2 months every year? Did his grandmother demand instruction in Russian in the NY public schools? When she arrived, did she declare the founders of the United States evil white men who oppressed her people?
My family tells pretty much the same story. Hard working immigrants from Sicily who made it all the way out to Colorado, busted their humps, raised good kids and enjoyed a fairly prosperous life with each generation doing better than the last. Here’s the thing though... the Ellis Island tests referred to in the story were designed to spotlight those who were not mentally, physically or financially able to enter the country. They didn’t want just anyone coming in AND this was a time when eugenics was coming into full view. My folks came in prior to 1924, had they gotten here any later they would have been turned around because the law said we were no longer taking Italians or Jews or anyone else the gov’t deemed unworthy. So, the author of this story can bleat all he/she wants, the truth is, if we were to administer these tests today, the leftists would have a fit... a true blue come apart.
Just gonna get LOTS WORSE & SOON thanks to THE DEMOCRATS & RINOs. Just WHY in hell did we sent thousands of our KIDS to Normandy & order them to run from vomit filled Higgins boats into German machine guns just to GIVE America away to anyone who can find North on a map and walk?
Millions of people suffered so much to build America and now these too clowns want to give it all alway just for THEIR POLITICAL POWER!
And another thing, you can tell what kind of citizens immigrants will make just by looking at their nations’ culture. There are many countries that are poor but have low crime rates while there are others that have high crime rates.
No predictions are necessary. Immigration should be brought to a near halt as it was from the 20’s to 1964 to allow for a two generation period of assimilation. People are simply NOT coming here to be Americans anymore.
I was thinking along the same lines. His grandmother didn’t have a “safety net.”
She knew she had to make it herself, by her own efforts. (I’m not saying that there might not have been friends, family, and organizations who helped people get on their feet, but the expectation was that they would do exactly that).
This is a tough one. Indeed.
You just cannot predict who can eventually be a productive member of society. However, you can predict how long it will take to become one if NOT on welfare.
I can tell you that China does not mess around in this regard. If you want to move to China and get a green card, you must show a skill set that is WAY WAY out of the norm.
Should the USA have this requirement? I don’t know. I am a little motivated by the situation (fictional, not doubt) about getting a job as a Lawyer on Better call Saul, season 4.
What needs to happen, I strongly feel is that our immigration policies are good ones, but must be followed with NO EXCEPTIONS. No administrative releases, etc. You come based on merit, and get to stay on ability.
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