THE LIBERALS ARE UP IN ARMS over president-elect Trump’s plans to limit immigration of certain people until it can be proven that they are not a threat to the nation.
Trump is calling for a “vetting” process that seems to anger the Left.
This is a bit strange for several reasons.
FIRST, the idea of special vetting – investigation – of selected individuals in specific groups was promised by lame duck president Obama. Trump’s proposal is basically Obama’s plan.
The fact that the promised additional vetting failed to occur during the Obama administration is another matter.
In truth, the U.S. normally does NOT vet people classified as refugees.
This is initially done by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM)
The UN is controlled by countries that hardly can be considered as having the nation’s best interest at the fore.
Eventually the refugee is interviewed by State Department and other federal agencies. Unfortunately, State is populated by pro-Arab liberals who thwart any attempts to protect the country – regardless of who is in the White House.
That’s today. What about “yesterday?”
The Puritans put the first immigration law into place on July 12, 1637. This law , the Alien Act, forbade newcomers from staying in the Massachusetts colony for more than three weeks sans the (civil/religious) court’s permission. This Act was to prevent the immigration of people who, although Puritans, held beliefs not held by the governors and majority preachers. (For an in-depth presentation of Puritan New England of the early 1600s refer to “American Jezebel “by Eve LaPlante, ISBN006-056233-1, in particular, Page 110 for information about the Act.)
According to the American Immigration History from Colonial Times to the 1965 Immigration Act, American opposition to immigration dates back to early Colonial days.
- The colonies often protested against the landing of criminals and some indentured servants. But as long as they had no independent standing, all they could do was complain.
In 1639, the Pilgrims of Massachusetts called for the expulsion of foreign paupers, setting fines for shipmasters who discharged criminals and paupers. Virginia and other colonies followed suit. Pennsylvania passed a law "for imposing a duty upon persons convicted of heinous crimes and imported into the Province," and another "for laying a duty on foreigners and Irish servants, etc.; imported into the Province." These laws were viewed as too weak and were repealed in 1729 and replaced by a more stringent ordinance.
The General Assembly of Maryland tried to reduce the number of criminals dumped on its shores with a 1676 law requiring all shipmasters to declare whether they had any convicts on board, and attempted to prohibit them from landing if they did. A fine of 2,000 pounds of tobacco was imposed on anyone attempting to illegally import criminals, half going to the government and half to informers. (The first "whistle blower" law?).
In 1700, Massachusetts passed an immigration law requiring shipmasters to furnish lists of passengers and prohibiting the landing of lame, impotent or infirm persons, or those incapable of earning their own keep. Shipmasters were required to return those proscribed persons to their home country.
The Infoplease.com web site chronologically lists U.S. Immigration Legislation with the subtitle "A detailed look at immigration legislation from the Colonial Period to the present."
The list starts with 1790 - well after the Puritans created their Act - and continues through 2014 when Obama announced he was taking executive action to delay the deportation of some 5 million illegal immigrants.
In 2005, The Real ID Act passed; it requires states to verify a person’s immigration status or citizenship before issuing licenses, expands restrictions on refugees requesting asylum, and limits the habeas corpus rights of immigrants.
Internment of U.S. citizens
Normally not considered "internment," the forced removal of Native American (Indians) from their homelands to "reservations" where they often were mistreated and then relocated again when the government wanted the land it had given the Indians: this has to be considered "internment" in the same light as the Italian and later German ghettos.
The best known internment during WW2 is of Japanese-Americans.
However, Italian-Americans also were rounded up and interned. Some German-Americans also were interred during WW1 and WW2.
The WW2 internment orders were issued by Democrat FDR who also was responsible for sending hundreds of Jews aboard the St. Louis back to German and to their deaths.
According to Business Insider Few people know that Executive Order 9066, signed by President Roosevelt, which permitted the roundup of Japanese and their American-born children, also paved the way for the arrest of Germans and Italians whom the FBI considered security risks and labeled as "enemy aliens." Indeed, the day before Roosevelt signed the order FBI agents had arrested 264 Italians, 1,296 Germans, and 2,209 on the East and West Coast. The hunt for perceived enemies was on.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, a.k.a. the McCarran-Walter Act (An act to revise the laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and nationality; and for other purposes) was passed by the 82nd Congress in June 27, 1952. The bill was vetoed by Democrat President Truman and then Congress, with a Democrat majority, overrode his veto.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was meant to exclude certain immigrants from immigrating to America, post World War II and in the early Cold War. The McCarran-Walter Act moved away from excluding immigrants based simply upon country of origin. Instead it focused upon denying immigrants who were unlawful, immoral, diseased in any way, politically radical etc. and accepting those who were willing and able to assimilate into the US economic, social, and political structures, which restructured how immigration law was handled. Furthermore, the most notable exclusions were anyone even remotely associated with communism which in the early days of the Cold War was seen as a serious threat to US democracy. The main objective of this was to block any spread of communism from outside post WWII countries, as well as deny any enemies of the US during WWII such as Japan and favor “good Asian” countries such as China. The McCarran-Walter Act was a strong reinforcement in immigration selection, which was labeled the best way to preserve national security and national interests.
Carter and Iran
On April 7, 1980, then president Carter, a Democrat, announced a series of new sanctions, including the following:
- the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.
ON THE OTHER HAND
Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security considered a specific policy to strengthen security screenings for foreign visa applicants’ social media accounts, but the proposal was ultimately not adopted, according to an internal department memo obtained by MSNBC.
While the U.S. visa screening process does not include formal vetting of social media accounts, the memo proposed the Obama administration “authorize” customs officials to “access social networking sites” to vet applicants. Such vetting could help catch applicants bent on fraud, crime or “national security” risks, the memo stated.
The federal government considered that policy, according to a former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but officials passed on it in 2011.
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