Children and Immigration in the 19th Century
Above: the ancestors of today’s anti-immigrant Republicans.
As this nation is going through one of its occasional freakouts about immigrants, it’s worth looking at how the nation has dealt with immigrants in the past. Specifically, how did the nation start dealing with American born children of people it wanted to deport? Hidetaka Hirota:
Upon the inspection, the Collector of Customs at the port of New York found that Nellie was “in destitute circumstances.” He then decided to detain Nellie and her children at an immigrant hospital on Ward’s Island on the East River as paupers who would be sent back to Scotland under the federal Immigration Act of 1882.
Nellie Wilkie could have been a simple addition to the list of excluded foreigners, but her American-born child made her case complicated. While denying Nellie and her children admission for the moment, the customs officer was not entirely certain if he could prohibit a native-born American citizen from landing in the United States and send the child to a foreign country. Nellie was an alien pauper who could lawfully be returned to Scotland, but could a citizen of the United States be banished with the immigrant mother? Realizing that the matter belonged to higher authority, the customs officer requested instructions from the Department of the Treasury, which was then charged with supervising issues of immigration to the United States.
In response, the Treasury Department reached a remarkable decision for Nellie Wilkie. In the first place, a native-born citizen could not be sent out of the country. If Nellie had to go back, her exclusion could be done only by “separating it [the citizen child] from its guardian by nature.” But it was not “the intention of Congress to sever the sacred ties existing between parent and child, or forcibly banish and expatriate a native-born child for the reason that its parent is a pauper.” Accordingly, the Treasury Department instructed the customs collector to admit Nellie and her children.
The case of Nellie Wilkie was not a one-time exception. A year later, the Treasury Department opposed the possible deportation of two Irish immigrant women on the grounds that they had native-born children who were “American citizens, under the natural guardianship of their mothers.” Considerations of the deportability of immigrant mothers, the department decided, “cannot affect the rights of their children since born on American soil and under the jurisdiction and protection of the United States.”
This and so many other cases also make me want to shake all the people today of Irish and Italian and Polish descent who are so worried about non-white immigrants and supporting Donald Trump. What about when your great-grandmother was the anchor baby?
I tried having this conversation with a cousin years ago. Family lore, possibly apocryphal, has our great-great-grandfather stowing away on a ship and sneaking out of Britain as a runaway apprentice. She, however, is traumatized by “the illegals.” I asked why it was okay for our ancestor to sneak in.
“Things are different now.”
Note that this is exactly the same argument for why unions are no longer needed.
In fairness to your cousin, the argument that 150 years ago, we were settling the west and needed more people to do that (and to work the jobs that made it possible) isn’t crazy. It’s wrong, and it ignores that much of the west was already settled and we were really just kicking the inhabitants out, but it’s not crazy on paper.
Although with some exceptions like the Scandinavians, it’s not like the justification for allowing in large-scale immigration was the peopling of the frontier. That doesn’t mean some of them didn’t end up there–Italians and Greeks in the mines for instance–but by and large the justification was we needed the labor in eastern factories.
Although, coincidentally, great-great-grandpa listened to Brigham Young, and settled in southern Utah, where my cousin lives today.
Whereabouts? We’ve driven the stretch in the SE corner that goes Bluff-Blanding-Moab on our way from the Grand Canyon to Denver.
Teasdale.
(That’s one of the main reasons I said it was wrong.)
Than and now, the great freak out about immigrants seems to occur more frequently in places where the immigrants do not settle.
Maybe not crazy, but for me at least the argument doesn’t pass the laugh test (or what my wife calls the eyeroll test-is the argument so terrible that you can’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes in the person’s face).
Or, rather, taking it away from its previous inhabitants.
There’s that (as I mentioned in the comment).
“Things are different now.”
Translation: those Irish and Italian and Polish anchor babies were white by current standards.
Right, but what about voter fraud among anchor babies who refuse to take the tax pledge?
My response is usually, “Is there anyone else on your list of those who don’t deserve to be born free?”
Cecil the lion?
Immigration procedures and law were much more flexible in the early 20th century for good and ill. It wasn’t open border but immigrants did not need a visa to enter the United States. The time period before naturalization started as soon as you were admitted. Permanent Resident status did not exist at the time. You were either a citizen or you were not. There wasn’t anything in-between. A lot of the work like naturalization and deportation were handled by the courts rather than civil service officials. The small size of the bureaucracy made things more flexible. It should also be noted that just marrying a United States citizen made you non-deportable. These days getting married is just one step in the process.
My grandfather traveled to the US in the 1920s and just started working. As a white English-speaking Canadian with steady work the govt wasn’t much interested in deporting him; employers and the locals didn’t care about his status. After he married my American grandmother he had to go back and get some paperwork sorted but it sounded pretty straightforward.
This was in the early days of the process. To get permanent residency through marriage currently requires two applications, the I-130 for the visa and the I-485 for permanent residency. The process can occur in the United States or outside it. The real complicated issue occurs when you marry an alien in the United States but the alien can’t be adjusted in the United States for a variety of reasons, usually because your spouse was smuggled in and the United States government has no idea where or when your spouse entered the United States. Without a Notice to Appear marking you as an arriving alien or an I-94 card, you are not going to be allowed to adjust status in the United States except in a few limited circumstances. This means that your spouse would have to go back but their could be inadmissibility issues because of undue presence, crimes, etc.
My Dad’s parents (ca. 1905-1910) certainly weren’t “legal” as we understand it now. Each got on a boat in Russia (they met here} and got off in Boston, where they were absorbed into the Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant community. I know that my grandmother became a citizen in the 1930s, I’m not sure that Grandpa ever did.
(My mom’s family was here since sometime in the mid-19th century. I have no idea what their status might have been at that time, but at least on one side they spoke English.)
The permanent resident status was created as part of the build up to World War II. The FDR administration required all non-citizens and foreign residents to register at the nearest post office. The card they got was called a green card. Before that you were either a citizen or you were not. Immigrants still had to be in the United States for five years before they could naturalize but once you were admitted, the clock started ticking. Most immigrants arriving in the United States these days do not receive permanent residency upon entry unless they are the beneficiary of an I-130 relative petition.
I dunno, I think there is an argument to be made that there should more restrictions on immigration.
Over history, organized labor has argued for tighter immigration policies on the entirely plausible basis that flooding the market with cheap foreign labor is bad for all workers in this country.
Personally, I go back and forth in my own mind on the issue. The labor market arguments seem to disregard the humanitarian aspects of good immigration policy, but the lassez faire open-borders proponents all seem to be affluent individuals with secure incomes who don’t give a shit what this means for low-income workers.
I have similar feelings. I support a change in our laws to legalize the people that are here because there illegal status is more harmful to our labor and employment laws than their mere presence.
However, I’m a employment lawyer in the south and there has been a influx of Central American immigrants in the last 10-15 years. The people hurt worst, from my experience talking with lots and lots of low wage workers, are low skill African-Americans.
Employers want the immigrants and I have seen cases where once the bulk of the employees are Spanish speaking immigrants the employer will only want to hire other Spanish speakers. It’s not the illegal status. Again, from my experience, employers seem to have this idea that these Central American immigrant workers are better, harder working, and more compliant than African-American low skilled workers. It’s like a really crappy “model minority” situation.
Could also be that institutional racism against African Americans in this country is so bad that many private employers want to hire literally anyone else. I’m not saying you’re wrong necessarily but I think there’s another side to that coin.
You’re definitely right that ingrained racism is part of the explanation. I’m sure the employers are glad they don’t have to hire African-Americans anymore because they have an option that didn’t exist 20 years ago.
An in-law describes a very similar situation where he lives in a rural section of central North Carolina. Whereas low-income whites and blacks were once employed as farm labor, now the work is exclusively done by Central American immigrants (both legal and illegal). This has caused many of the ex-farm worker families to move way, or to go permanently on the dole.
African-Americans were big advocates of implementing a visa system to immigrate to the United States during the early 20th century.
I’m always uncomfortable with these debates because my livelihood depends on immigration.
Mr. Blueloom’s livelihood also depends on immigration. He is one of a very rare breed: what’s known among immigration groupies as a “liberal restrictionist.” He’s politically liberal, but restrictionist on immigration issues. He has a long history of working with labor issues (going back to when Willard Wirtz was secy of labor), and he feels very strongly about the impact of immigration (legal & illegal) on jobs, both for low-wage earners and, for example, for relatively high-wage US-citizen computer programmers. (Guess who spends millions on lobbying Congress for more H1-B workers. Did I hear you say Microsoft? You’re right!)
Unfortunately, my mother and all four grandparents were immigrants in the late 19th & early 20th Centuries. Mr. B and I don’t discuss immigration much.
I think there s a strong argument for stricter immigration policies.
Why do you think there is no wage growth in the last 30 years. Employers in low wage industries love illegal immigrants because they will not complain and do not ask for wage increases. They shut up and take it.
Does anyone remember Cezar Chavez in the 60’s and his fight for decent wages for migrant workers? We still don’t have any protections for them because as soon as you get any concession from farmers someone else brings in tons of illegals who will work for nothing. So it is specious to say that those who agree we need massive immigration reform are racists. Maybe they just don’t’ want the continued exploitation of workers.
Two things will solve the immigration problem tomorrow
1) HUGE fines for employers that knowingly or unknowingly employ any illegal worker (and please do not tell me the government can’t keep track these days)
2) eliminating the right to be a citizen just because you were born here unless you have at least one parent who is a citizen or your parents are legal permanent residents.
No other 1st world country has birthright citizenship except Canada and those countries are not suffering. England eliminated it in 1973 I believe. Did any of the horrible things happen that the scare mongers are saying? No. It is easy to require that one of your parents be a citizen in order to qualify. Do any of you understand that the US had to pass a statute(not a constitutional amendment) that a child born to American parents abroad had a right to citizenship? Again other counties do this automatically.
We need to solve the illegal immigrant problem in the US. Are the motives of the republicans pure – not one bit. But they tap into a real problem and most americans agree and it is not because they are necessarily racist. The media plays that card and puts only one slant on it. Open the discussion.
I’m sure this has been mentioned somewhere, but the entire problem of “anchor babies” would almost evaporate if they’d only start calling themselves “anchor fetuses.” It’s all about the marketing.
It won’t work. Everybody knows that 14th amendment rights attach at conception and end at birth. It’s right there in the latest edition of the constitution (Tea Party translation)
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