Donald Trump’s Immigration Principles Would’ve Barred His Own Grandfather
*So Trump’s plan would have kept his own grandfather from coming to the U.S. This piece has a good recounting of the mid-nineteenth century history of the U.S. when German immigration was opposed by the nativists of the time. There were violent clashes over fears that Germans were taking American jobs, competing with skilled laborers and displacing American farmers. The Germans fought for language rights and representation at the ballot box. Sound familiar? VL
By Conor Freidersdorf, The Atlantic
Donald Trump’s immigration paper asserts, as “core principles,” that “there must be a wall across the southern border” because “a nation without borders is not a nation.” And it argues that “any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages, and security for all Americans,” because “a nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation.” Many have observed that America has never had a wall across its southern border, and that no immigration plan has ever improved wages and security for all Americans. By Trump’s logic, America has never been a nation.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]Today, there are nearly 50 million Americans of German ancestry. Many have hazy, romanticized notions of the time when their ancestors came to America.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]One wonders what he calls the country that allowed his ancestors to immigrate here.
He is of German stock on his father’s side.
Prior to his grandfather’s arrival, plenty of immigration restrictionists believed, not without reason, that German immigration had irrevocably changed their communities.
As one example, consider what took place in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Click HERE to read the full story.
[Photo courtesy of Library of Congress]
