Sunday, February 03, 2013

There once was no such thing as "illegal" immigration.

I'm glad Bruni took this on.

Much of the right-wing rage against "illegals" has nothing to do with filing the proper paperwork and everything to do with racism and xenophobia.

But Bruni failed to point out that when millions of Italians and Irish were streaming through Ellis Island, there were little or no immigration restrictions in place. They clamped down on Southern Italians sometime in the mid-20s (which is why his grandfather may have taken the route he did) -- but they were taking pretty much everyone from the late 1890s to the '20s.



2 comments:

Larry Rubinow said...

Only if by "everyone" you mean "everyone but the Chinese".

JohnR said...

"..but we won't take the Irish!"