🇺🇸🗽🤯 HISTORY: 100 YEARS AGO, AMERICA TRIED, BUT ULTIMATELY FAILED, TO STAY “WHITE & PROTESTANT” WITH THE 1924 IMMIGRATION ACT — Many Were Hurt Or Died From This Bias In The Interim — Now Trump & The Nativist Right Want To Revive One Of The Worst Eras In U.S. History — Will Indifference & Ignorance From Dems & So-Called “Centrists” Let Them Get Away With Turning Back The Clock? ⏰☠️🤮 — Two Renowned Authors Offer A View Of A Biased, Deadly, & Ultimately Highly Counterproductive Past That Still Poisons Our Politics & Threatens Our Future As A Beacon Of Hope! — PLUS: Kowalski & Chase Take On The “False Scholars” 🤮 Who Disingenuously Attempt To “Glorify” Xenophobia & Racism!🤯

1924 Act
The 1924 Immigration Act vilified, dehumanized, and barred many of those immigrants who have made America great, like Italian Americans being demeaned in this cartoon. Yet, some descendants of those unfairly targeted appear oblivious to the mistakes of the past and willing to inflict the same immoral lies, harm, and suffering on today’s migrants.
IMAGE: Public Realm
Eduardo Porter
Eduardo Porter
Columnist and Editorial Board Member
Washington Post
PHOTO: WashPost

Eduardo Porter writes in WashPost:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/immigration-history-race-quota-progress/

“I think that we have sufficient stock in America now for us to shut the door.”

That sounds like Donald Trump, right? Maybe on one of his campaign stops? It certainly fits the mood of the country. This year, immigration became voters’ “most important problem” in Gallup polling for the first time since Central Americans flocked to the border in 2019. More than half of Americans perceive immigrants crossing the border illegally as a “critical threat.”

Yet the sentiment expressed above is almost exactly 100 years old. It was uttered by Sen. Ellison DuRant Smith, a South Carolina Democrat, on April 9, 1924. And it helped set the stage for a historic change in U.S. immigration law, which imposed strict national quotas for newcomers that would shape the United States’ ethnic makeup for decades to come.

. . . .

The renewed backlash against immigration has little to offer the American project, though. Closing the door to new Americans would be hardly desirable, a blow to one of the nation’s greatest sources of dynamism. Raw data confirms how immigrants are adding to the nation’s economic growth, even while helping keep a lid on inflation.

Anyway, that horse left the stable. The United States is full of immigrants from, in Trump’s memorable words, “s—hole countries.” The project to set this in reverse is a fool’s errand. The 1924 Johnson-Reed immigration law might have succeeded in curtailing immigration. But the restrictions did not hold. From Presidents Johnson to Trump, efforts to circle the wagons around some ancestral White American identity failed.

We are extremely lucky it did. Contra Sen. Ellison DuRant Smith’s 100-year old prescriptions, the nation owes what greatness it has to the many different women and men it has drawn from around the world to build their futures. This requires a different conversation — one that doesn’t feature mass expulsions and concentration camps but focuses on constructing a new shared American identity that fits everyone, including the many more immigrants who will arrive from the Global South for years to come.

*******************************

Gordon F. Sander
Gordon F. Sander
Journalist and Historian
PHOTO: www.gordonsander.com

Gordon F. Sander, journalist and historian, also writes in WashPost, perhaps somewhat less optimistically, but with the same historical truth in the face of current political lies and gross misrepresentations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/05/24/johnson-reed-act-immigration-quotas-trump/

. . . .

Johnson and Reed were in a triumphant mood on the eve of their bill’s enactment. “America of the melting pot will no longer be necessary,” Reed wrote in the Times. He remarked on the new law’s impact: “It will mean a more homogenous nation, more self-reliant, more independent and more closely knit by common properties and common faith.”

The law immediately had its intended effect. In 1921, more than 200,000 Italians arrived at Ellis Island. In 1925, following the bill’s enactment, barely 6,000 Italians were permitted entry.

But there were less intended consequences, too, including on U.S. foreign relations. Although Reed insisted there was nothing personal about the act’s exclusion of Japanese people, the Japanese government took strong exception, leading to an increase in tensions between the two countries. There were riots in Tokyo. The road to Pearl Harbor was laid.

During the 1930s, after the eugenics-driven Nazis seized control of Germany, the quotas established by the act helped close the door to European Jews and others fleeing fascism.

At the same time, the law also inspired a small but determined group of opponents led by Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.), who were committed to overturning it. Celler’s half-century-long campaign finally paid off in 1965 at the Statue of Liberty when, as Celler looked on, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which ended national origin quotas.

But with anti-immigration sentiment on the rise and quotas once again on the table, it’s clear that a century after its enactment, the ghost of Johnson-Reed isn’t completely gone.

Gordon F. Sander is a journalist and historian based in Riga, Latvia. He is the author of “The Frank Family That Survived: A 20th Century Odyssey” and other books

***********************

Many thanks to my friend and immigration maven Deb Sanders for alerting me to the Sander article. I strongly urge everyone to read both pieces at the links above.

Perhaps the most poignant comment I’ve received about these articles is from American educator, expert, author, and “practical scholar” Susan Gzesh:

And because of the 1924 Act, my grandparents lost dozens of their siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews to the Holocaust in the 1940s because Eastern European Jewish immigration to the US had been cut off. They would have been capable of sponsoring more family to come to the US in the late 1920s and 30s, but there was no quota for them.

I have no words to describe my feelings about so-called experts who would praise the 1924 Act. I know that Asian Americans must feel similarly to my sentiments.

Well said, Susan!

 

Susan Gzesh
Susan Gzesh
American scholar, educator, expert, author
PHOTO: U. Of Chicago

I’ll leave it at that, for you to ponder the next time you hear Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, and the like fear-monger about the bogus “invasion,” spout “replacement theory,” and extoll the virtues of extralegal cruelties and dehumanization inflicted upon “the other” — typically the most vulnerable who are  seeking our legal protection and appealing to our senses of justice and human dignity! And, also you can consider this when the so called “mainstream media” pander to these lies by uncritically presenting them as “the other side,” thereby echoing “alternative facts!”

It’s also worth remembering this when you hear Biden, Harris, Schumer, Murphy, and other weak-kneed Dem politicos who should know better adopt Trumpist White Nationalist proposals and falsely present them as “realistic compromises” — as opposed to what they really are —  tragic acts of political and moral cowardice!

Eventually, as both of the above articles point out, America largely persevered and prospered over its demons of racism, anti-Catholicism, and anti-immigrant nationalism. But, it would be wrong to view this “long arc” analysis as “zeroing out” the sins and horrors of our past. 

Susan Gzesh’s relatives died, some horribly and painfully, before their time. That can’t be changed by future progress. Nor can the children they might have had or the achievements they never got to make to our nation and the world be resurrected. 

As Susan mentions, the 1924 Act also reinforced long-standing racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans that led to the irreversible harm inflicted by the internment of Japanese American citizens, continuing Chinese Exclusion, and a host of state laws targeting the Asian population and making their lives miserable. Belated recognition of the wrongfulness and immorality of these reprehensible laws and actions does nothing for their past victims.

Many Irish, Italian, and other Catholics and their cherished institutions died, lost property, or were permanently displaced by widespread anti-Catholic riots brought on and fanned by the very type of biased and ignorant thinking that undergirded Johnson-Reed. They can’t be brought back to life and their property restored just by a “magic wave of the historical wand.” 

U.S. citizens of Mexican-American heritage were deported and dispossessed, some from property their ancestors had owned long before there was even a United States. Apologizing to their descendants and acknowledging our mistakes as a nation won’t eliminate the injustices done them — ones that they took to their graves!

Despite the “lessons of the Holocaust,” America continues to struggle with anti-Semitism and anti-Islamic phobias and indifference to human suffering beyond our borders.

And, of course, the poisonous adverse impacts of slavery on our nation and our African-American compatriots continue to haunt and influence us despite disingenuous claims to the contrary.

Dan Kowalski
Dan Kowalski
Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Jeffrey S. Chase
Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase
Jeffrey S. Chase Blog
Coordinator & Chief Spokesperson, Round Table of Former Immigration Judges

My friends immigration experts Dan Kowalski and Hon. Jeffrey Chase also had some “choice words” for the “false scholars” who extol the fabricated “benefits” of White Nationalism and racism embodied in “laws” that contravened the very meaning of “with liberty and justice for all” — something to reflect upon this Memorial Day. See https://dankowalski.substack.com/p/true-colors.

That prompted this response from Susan:

Susan Gzesh

11 hrs ago

Thank you, Dan! In memory of my Gzesh, Wolfson, Kronenberg, and Kissilove relatives who were victims of the Holocaust – after their U.S.-based relatives failed to get visas for them.

I also recently weighed in on the horrors of the 1924 Act in a recent article by Felipe De La Hoz, published in The New Republic: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2024/05/02/🏴☠%EF%B8%8F🤯🤮-a-century-of-progress-arrested-the-1924-immigration-act-rears-its-ugly-nativist-head-again-felipe-de-la-hoz-in-the-new-repub/.

Heed the lessons of history, enshrine tolerance, honor diversity, and “improve on past performance!”  We have a choice as to whether or not to repeat the mistakes of the past — to regress to a darker age or move forward to a brighter future for all!  Make the right one!

 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-27-24

🏴‍☠️🤯🤮 A CENTURY OF PROGRESS ARRESTED: THE 1924 IMMIGRATION ACT REARS ITS UGLY NATIVIST HEAD AGAIN! — Felipe De La Hoz In The New Republic, Quoting Me Among Others!

Felipe De La Hoz Felipe is an investigative and explanatory reporter focusing on immigration in the U.S. He is a former reporter for the investigative site Documented, and has written for The Village Voice, The Daily Beast, WNYC, The New Republic, The Baffler, and other outlets. He is the co-founder of the weekly immigration policy newsletter BORDER/LINES. PHOTO: The Intercept

https://newrepublic.com/article/180494/america-broken-immigration-system-racist-origins

Felipe writes:

How a little-known, century-old law perpetuated the odious notion that certain types of immigrants degrade our nation’s character

As radical as the contemporary GOP has become in recent years, it remains generally verboten in mainstream circles to openly call for murder. At least, for all but one demographic: migrants, whom Texas Governor Greg Abbott earlier this year lamented he couldn’t order killed. At best, party officials might argue that they are disease-ridden freeloaders; at worst, that they’re a demographic ticking time bomb engineered to wipe out real, white America.

This rhetoric has often been mistaken as a new turn for American political discourse, but it’s more of a return to an earlier era, one cemented by a law signed a century ago this month by Calvin Coolidge: the Immigration Act of 1924, known as Johnson-Reed after its House and Senate sponsors.

. . . .

“Those of us that sort of thought the ’24 act was in the rearview mirror, you know, I think we’ve been proven wrong,” the former immigration judge [PWS] added.

****************************

Read Felipe’s complete article, containing more quotes from me, at the link.

Texas Border
Abuse of migrants has a long ugly history in Texas and elsewhere along the border. The pushers of the 1924 Immigration Act must be smiling at how their toxic ideas have continued to be accepted and promoted by 21st Century politicos.
Public Realm (1948)

Turning back the clock to the worst impulses in American history is bad stuff! It’s as if we have collectively forgotten the lessons of the World War II age and why it was necessary to defeat Nazi Germany.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-02-24 

🦸🏻‍♀️🎖️ NDPA SUPERHERO REKHA SHARMA-CRAWFORD HONORED BY ASIAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF K.C. ON THE EVE OF THE SHARMA-CRAWFORD CLINIC’S 7th ANNUAL IMMIGRATION COURT TRIAL ADVOCACY COLLEGE IN KANSAS CITY, MO, April 24-26, 2024

*********************

Congrats, my friend, on this well-deserved recognition! Kansas City, here I come! On my way, looking forward to seeing you and the rest of the All-Star 🌟 faculty on Thursday!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-24-22

🇺🇸🗽⚖️🎇 JULY 4, 2023 — “On True American Patriotism” By Robert Reich In Substack! — “The true meaning of patriotism is the opposite of Trump’s exclusionary White Christian Nationalism.”

Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Former US Secretary of Labor
Professor of Public Policy
CAL Berkeley
Creative Commons License
Naturalization
Naturalization Ceremony
USG Official Photo
Public Domain

https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-patriotism?r=330z7&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=pos

Friends,

On Saturday, Donald Trump conducted the second formal rally of his campaign — in Pickens, South Carolina, where an estimated 50,000 turned up under the scorching sun to hear him.

There, he advanced his version of patriotism based on White Christian Nationalism.

He began by celebrating the town’s namesake, Francis Pickens, who was governor of South Carolina when it was the first to secede from the Union on the eve of the Civil War. Trump assured the crowd he wouldn’t let “them” change the town’s name.

He commended the Supreme Court for rejecting affirmative action “so someone who has not worked as hard will not take your place.”

He saluted the court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade so “radical left Democrats will not kill babies.”

He promised to stop “men competing in women’s sports” and prevent classroom teachers from teaching the “wrong” lessons about sexuality or history.

He condemned foreign governments that “send” over the border “people in jails and insane asylums” and promised to deny entry to “all communists and Marxists.”

And he declared America’s most dangerous opponents not to be Russia, China, or North Korea but “enemies within” America.

Rubbish.

The true meaning of patriotism is the opposite of Trump’s exclusionary White Christian Nationalism.

America’s moral mission has been toward greater inclusion — providing equal rights to women, Black people, immigrants, Native Americans, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, and agnostic.

True patriots don’t fuel racist, religious, or ethnic divisions. Patriots aren’t homophobic or sexist.

Nor are patriots blind to social injustices — whether ongoing or embedded in American history. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of the nation’s past.

True patriots are not uncritically devoted to America. They are devoted instead to the ideals of America — the rule of law, equal justice, voting rights and civil rights, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from fear, and democracy.

True patriots don’t have to express patriotism in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag.

They express patriotism in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going — sacrificing for the common good.

This means paying taxes in full rather than lobbying for lower taxes or seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad.

It means refraining from making large political contributions that corrupt American democracy.

It means blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job.

And volunteering time and energy to improving one’s community and country.

Nor is patriotism found in baseless claims that millions of people vote fraudulently. Or in pushing for laws that make it harder for people to vote based on the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

Patriotism lies instead in strengthening democracy — defending the right to vote and ensuring more Americans are heard.

Patriots understand that when they serve the public, their responsibility is to maintain and build public trust in the institutions of democracy.

They don’t put loyalty to their political party above their love of America. They don’t support an attempted coup.

They don’t try to hold onto power after voters have chosen not to reelect them. They don’t make money off their offices.

When serving on the Supreme Court, they recuse themselves from cases where they may appear to have a conflict of interest. They don’t disregard precedent to impose their own ideology.

America’s problem is not as described by Trump and his White Christian Nationalism — that the nation is losing its whiteness or dominant religion, that too many foreigners are crossing its borders, that men are competing in women’s sports or teachers are not celebrating the nation’s history.

America’s problem is that too many Americans — including its lawmakers — are failing to understand what patriotism requires.

************************

Happy July 4!😎🇺🇸

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-04-23

 

🇺🇸⚖️🗽 THE 14TH AMENDMENT IS A GENIUS 🧠 PROVISION THAT IS AT THE  HEART OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY — That’s Why White Nativist Racists Like Trump, DeSantis, & Their GOP Supporters Are Baselessly Attacking It! 🏴‍☠️🤮 — Jamelle Bouie in The NY Times! — “If birthright citizenship is the constitutional provision that makes a multiracial democracy of equals possible, then it is no wonder that it now lies in the cross hairs of men who lead a movement devoted to unraveling that particular vision of the American republic.”

Ron DeSantis Dave Grandlund PoliticalCartoons.com Republished under license Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!
Ron DeSantis
Dave Grandlund
PoliticalCartoons.com
Republished under license
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!
Jamelle Bouie
Jamelle Bouie
Columnist
NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opinion/birthright-citizenship-trump-desantis.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Jamelle concludes:

. . . .

The birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment, based on similar language found in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was a direct response to and a rebuke of [chief Justice] Taney’s reasoning [in Dred Scott]. Having won the argument on the battlefield, the United States would amend its Constitution to establish an inclusive and, in theory, egalitarian national citizenship.

The authors of the 14th Amendment knew exactly what they were doing. In a country that had already seen successive waves of mass immigration, they knew that birthright citizenship would extend beyond Black and white Americans to people of other hues and backgrounds. That was the point.

Asked by an opponent if the clause would “have the effect of naturalizing the children of Chinese and Gypsies born in this country,” Senator Lyman Trumbull, who helped draft the language of birthright citizenship in the Civil Rights Act, replied “Undoubtedly.” Senator John Conness of California said outright that he was “ready to accept the provision proposed in this constitutional amendment, that the children born here of Mongolian parents shall be declared by the Constitution of the United States to be entitled to civil rights and to equal protection before the law with others.”

In 1867, around the time Congress was debating and formulating the 14th Amendment, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech in Boston where he outlined his vision of a “composite nationality,” an America that stood as a beacon for all peoples, built on the foundation of an egalitarian republic. “I want a home here not only for the Negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours,” Douglass said. “The outspread wings of the American Eagle are broad enough to shelter all who are likely to come.”

If birthright citizenship is the constitutional provision that makes a multiracial democracy of equals possible, then it is no wonder that it now lies in the cross hairs of men who lead a movement devoted to unraveling that particular vision of the American republic.

Embedded in birthright citizenship, in other words, is the potential for a freer, more equal America. For Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, that appears to be the problem.

*****************

Read the rest of Jamelle’s outstanding article and get the real story about the 14th Amendment. It has nothing to do with the racist lies and distortions spewed forth by Trump, DeSantis, and their fellow GOP white supremacists!

As we know, Congress has failed to address the realities of immigration since the enactment of IRCA in 1986. That has inevitably led to a large, disenfranchised population of undocumented residents — essential members of our society, yet deprived of political power and the ability to reach their full potential by their “status.” Consequently, they are  subject to exploitation.

Nevertheless, this phenomenon would be much more serious without the “genius of the 14th Amendment.” Notwithstanding the failure of the political branches to address immigration in a realistic manner, the overwhelming number of the “next generation” of that underground population are now full U.S. citizens with the ability to participate in our political system and otherwise assert their full rights in our society.

Thus, because of the 14th Amendment we have avoided the highly problematic phenomenon of generations of disenfranchised Americans, essentially “stateless individuals,” forced into an underground existence. It’s not that these individuals born in the U.S., who have known no other country, would be going anywhere else, by force or voluntarily. Nor would it be in our best interests to degrade, dehumanize, and exclude generations of our younger fellow citizens as Trump, DeSantis, and the GOP far right extremist crazies advocate.

Additionally, in contradiction of traditional GOP dogma about limited government, the Trump/DeSantis charade would spawn a huge new and powerful “citizenship determining bureaucracy” that almost certainly would work against the poor, vulnerable, and individuals of color in deciding who “belongs” and who doesn’t and what documentation suffices. How many adult American citizens today who have deceased parents could readily produce definitive documentation of their parents’ citizenship?

So, notwithstanding GOP intransigence, their vile and baseless attacks on the 14th Amendment, and the lack of political will to solve and harness the realities and power of human immigration, the 14th Amendment is at work daily, solving much of the problem for us and making us a better nation, sometimes in spite of our Government’s actions or inactions. And, it performs this essential service in a manner that is relatively transparent and minimally bureaucratic for most. 

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

07-01-23

🇺🇸 MAINE VOICES: A “Woke” America Is A Better America, Says Don Bessey Of Old Orchard Beach — Speak Out Against the Agenda Of Hate, Marginalization, & Dehumanization Being Touted By Right-Wing Politicos & Their Followers! — “These people should not be leading our wonderful country.”

Ron DeSantis Dave Grandlund PoliticalCartoons.com Republished under license Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!
Ron DeSantis
Dave Grandlund
PoliticalCartoons.com
Republished under license
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!

https://www.pressherald.com/2023/06/10/maine-voices-woke-should-not-be-a-four-letter-word/

From the Portland Press Herald:

Maine Voices: ‘Woke’ should not be a four-letter word

Being aware of how we have treated and still treat other people in our society is so important to our society’s evolving that it should be honored, not vilified.

It is frustrating to see the continuous redefining of words and terms by the extremist conservative element in our society and government. One of these terms is “woke.” According to Merriam-Webster, the definition is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues.” I will add in the qualification as well: “especially issues of ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For my entire life I have strived to embrace this philosophy, trying to listen to and understand other opinions, beliefs and religions, whether they agreed with mine or not, understanding that one cannot fully comprehend a point of view without appreciating the counterpoint. This certainly requires personal evolution and maturity. Being aware of the true history of our country, of how we have treated and still treat other people in our society, is so important to our society’s evolving that it should be honored, not vilified.

The term “woke” has now been unjustly transformed into a negative term. Let that sink in: Attention to important facts and issues, the truth, is something to avoid and discredit. Somehow, this makes sense to a significant number of our political leaders and fellow Americans. It appears that what is most troubling for those who would see “woke” as a vile four-letter word is the qualification above, that it applies to “issues of racial and social justice.”

One of the tag lines for objecting to this thought is that it may cause someone to feel uncomfortable or criticized by being confronted with these historical facts. Personally, I strongly desire to know the truth. I am delighted – admittedly, shocked sometimes – by learning about the history we were never taught, which was suppressed to a large extent for so many years by those who perpetrated many injustices. The historical truth has never made me feel bad about myself. In fact, it is enlightening. It expands my understanding of how and why we have come to this place in our evolution. It shows me how to be better and more empathetic, and it suggests the path forward.

I believe I do understand why this can be so threatening and discomforting to so many. I believe that the truth is like a mirror to them. They see their own racist views, their distrust of anyone they perceive as being “different” as a significant threat. I feel so sad for them, since in my life, through being open to other races, ethnicities, religions and thoughts, I have learned so much and have been blessed with a much more beautiful world, life and friends.

It is extremely troubling to see elected officials, the leaders of our political parties, and fellow Americans embracing and endorsing this philosophy of derision, division and hateful rhetoric that has its roots in the cesspool of white supremacist thought.  They are leading us into the abyss of an authoritarian kakistocracy, or government by the worst of us. We must all, every rational one of us, stand and reject this thinking. We must only, and always, embrace truth, the actual facts. These people should not be leading our wonderful country.

Don Bessey is an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War and a resident of Old Orchard Beach.

************************

Well said, Don! Thanks for speaking out so forcefully! 

Don’s views echo several previous postings from Courtside:

Walter Rhein: “When people say they are ‘anti-woke,’ I interrupt them and say ‘You mean ‘anti-black.’ They become enraged and act like they’re the victims (like racists always do).”https://wp.me/p8eeJm-8tJ

*************************

 

As [Villanova University President] Father [Peter M.] Donohue said at yesterday’s celebration,  “‘Woke’ means social justice!” https://wp.me/p8eeJm-8vF

 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-11-23

 🏴‍☠️☠️ NAACP ISSUES TRAVEL WARNING: Florida, The Neo-Fascist “Hate State” ⚠️

 

Nina GolgowskiSenior Reporter HuffPost PHOTO: HuffPost
Nina Golgowski
Senior Reporter
HuffPost
PHOTO: HuffPost

Nina Golgowski reports for HuffPost:

The NAACPs Board of Directors has issued a travel warning about Florida that accuses the state, and pointedly Gov. Ron DeSantis, of being openly hostile toward African Americans, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.”

Before traveling to Florida, please understand that the state of Florida devalues and marginalizes the contributions of, and the challenges faced by African Americans and other communities of color,” the notice issued Saturday states.

The civil rights organization specifically accuses DeSantis, a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, of aggressively attempting to erase Black history and restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools.”

. . . .

*****************

Read Nina’s complete report at the link.

Colfax Massacre
“Gathering the dead after the Colfax massacre, published in Harper’s Weekly, May 10, 1873” — White Nationalist snowflakes like DeSantis feel diminished and threatened by the truth about American history and the role of race.                                                                  

The “anti-woke agenda” touted by DeSantis is a very thinly disguised euphemism for “overtly racist!” That, decades after folks like Gov. George Wallace and Sen. Strom Thurmond unabashedly made hate, segregation, and racism the “centerpieces” of failed presidential bids, racists like DeSantis are openly campaigning on the same basic platform, and enacting it in their “mini-reichs,” should be deeply disturbing to younger generations of voters who will have to live with the stupidity, ignorance, cynicism, and hate promoted by these immoral GOP pols. It’s a race backwards and to the bottom that can only end in a complete catastrophe for our nation and the world!

Also remember: It all started with the dehumanization and false demonization of migrants. Many, including too many Dems, have been unwilling to stand up against it! That’s how the GOP’s “destroy America” agenda gains traction!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-22-23

 

 

🇺🇸🗽⚖️ NDPA SUPERHERO 🦸🏽‍♀️ MARIA DANIELLA PRIESHOFF: Cut The Dehumanizing Language! — “[T]he more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.”

Maria Daniella Prieshoff
Maria Daniella Prieshoff
Senior Attorney
Tahirih Justice Center
Baltimore, MD
PHOTO: Tahirih

https://otherwords.org/retire-this-dehumanizing-language-about-immigrants/

Four Central American girls at a tent for U.S. asylum seekers in Reynosa, Mexico. For years now the U.S. has forced asylum applicants to wait in Mexico, often for years and in dangerous conditions. (Shutterstock)
Four Central American girls at a tent for U.S. asylum seekers in Reynosa, Mexico. For years now the U.S. has forced asylum applicants to wait in Mexico, often for years and in dangerous conditions. (Shutterstock)

Retire This Dehumanizing Language About Immigrants

Human beings fleeing persecution are not a “flood” or “surge.” And it’s not “illegal” when they cross the border to seek asylum.

Daniella Prieshoff

Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case.

During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city.

In confusion and fear, Susan asked me: “Why do they hate us so much?”

While I couldn’t answer Susan’s question, her underlying concern highlights a startling escalation of public aggression against migrants over the past year.

There seems to be a growing “us” versus “them” mentality towards immigrants. This divisive language serves no purpose other than to divide our country, undermine the legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and cultivate a fear of the most vulnerable.

A clear example is showcased in recent media coverage of northbound migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”— language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.

These descriptions are accompanied by sensational photographs and videos of long lines of brown and Black immigrants wading across the Rio Grande, crowding along the border wall, or boarding Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) vehicles to be transported to detention.

Woven into this framing is the near-constant use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to describe unauthorized crossings. As an advocate for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking, I’m alarmed by the use of this language to describe a migrant’s attempt to survive.

Moreover, it’s often simply incorrect. A noncitizen who has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they’ve fled has a legal right — protected under both U.S. and international law — to enter the United States to seek asylum.

When mainstream media wield the term “illegal” as though it were synonymous with “unauthorized,” they misinform readers and falsely paint asylum seekers as criminals.

Worse still, they encourage politicians who call immigrants themselves “illegals,” a deeply dehumanizing term. And the more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.

We must retire the use of this inflammatory rhetoric, which distracts from real solutions that would actually serve survivors arriving at our borders.

Migrants expelled back to their home countries are at grave risk of severe harm or death at the hands of their persecutors. Those forced to remain in Mexico as they await entry to the United States are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime or abusive and dangerous conditions in detention.

And those who have no choice but to desperately navigate dangerous routes to the United States to avoid apprehension are increasingly dying by dehydration, falling from cliffs, and drowning in rivers.

The words we use in everyday discourse mean something — they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Now more than ever, I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.

Now is the time to apply accuracy and humanity in our depictions of migrants. Let’s not repeat the errors of our past.

***********************

Thanks for speaking up, MDP!

Dehumanization of the “other” has a long ugly history in the U.S., of course going back to enslaved African Americans, Native Americans, and the Chinese Exclusion Laws. 

We also see that dehumanizing language has extended from asylum seekers and other migrants to the LGBTQ+ community, Asian Americans, advocates for social justice, homelessness, handicaps, economic disadvantages, women, government officials, political opponents, etc.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-05-23

🚫HISTORY THE GOP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW: Let’s Be Very Clear About The Truth That White Nationalist Racists Want To “Whitewash” & Its Continuing Corrosive Effect on Our Nation! 

 

Anti-Chinese Poster
This is part of the “real history” of America! The GOP doesn’t want to talk about it!
Public Realm

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-11-12/la-me-eureka-chinatown-history

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CALIFORNIA

This California town ran its Chinese residents out. Now the story is finally being told

Mary Chin stands beside a mural in downtown Eureka, Calif., depicting her late husband, Ben Chin, who was said to be the first Chinese American to move to the town in seven decades. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

BY HAILEY BRANSON-POTTSSTAFF WRITER

NOV. 12, 2022 5 AM PT

EUREKA, Calif. —  Beauty drew Brieanne Mirjah D’Souza to Eureka.

In 2018, she and her husband — Michigan natives who had been living for a spell in the Bay Area — moved up to this chilly old timber town to build a life beneath the redwoods and by the sea.

But last winter, pregnant with her first child, D’Souza began reflecting on this pretty place she would bring her son into.

D’Souza, a 32-year-old digital marketer, is of Chinese and West Indian descent. And Humboldt County is very white.

As D’Souza’s belly grew and the headlines told of a dramatic surge in anti-Asian hate crimes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, D’Souza set out to find other people who looked like her.

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A fledgling group started meeting over Zoom and trading emails. They learned there had once been a Chinatown in Eureka. Maybe they could commemorate it with a plaque, they figured.

But where had it gone?

::

In the late 19th century, Chinatown occupied a single block in the middle of the remote, misty port town.

A historical photo is held up at the corner of 4th and E Streets in Eureka during a guided tour of the city’s old Chinatown, which stood on the right in both images. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A few hundred Asian immigrants — mostly men — lived in Eureka after a federal law barred immigration from China in 1882.

They toiled in redwood logging camps, laundries and restaurants. They were nannies and household servants and vegetable growers. They were former gold prospectors priced out of the work because of a predatory state tax on foreign miners.

When the economy soured in the 1880s, white people blamed them, claiming they stole jobs. Newspapers whipped up anti-Chinese sentiment.

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“There were a lot of stereotypes: that Chinese people were diseased, they were morally corrupt, they would not assimilate to the rest of American society at the time,” said Katie Buesch, a former director and curator at the Clarke Historical Museum in Eureka.

That sentiment was par for the course in the Golden State at the time.

Some California city officials are now acknowledging the ugly past — a counter-movement to red-state politicians pushing to ban books and limit the teaching of history that involves race.

Antioch and San Jose apologized last year for burning their Chinatowns in the late 1800s. San Francisco apologized for barring Chinese children from public schools.

Los Angeles is working on a memorial to commemorate an 1871 massacre in which at least 18 Chinese people were fatally shot or hanged. And in Pacific Grove earlier this year, organizers canceled a pageant that had long featured performers in yellowface.

In Humboldt County, Buesch, who had put together a small museum exhibit on Eureka’s Chinese community just before the pandemic, was struck by an 1885 article in the Daily Times-Telephone newspaper about Chinatown.

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“The time has come when these plague spots should be removed,” the newspaper wrote.

On Feb. 5, 1885, the newspaper, which called the Chinese neighborhood a violent, drug-addled “leper’s colony,” wrote that it would probably be “goodbye to Chinatown” if an “unoffending white man” were killed there.

A Chinese vegetable merchant carries his goods in Eureka before the Chinese expulsion in 1885.(Courtesy of Jean Pfaelzer)

The very next day, a white Eureka city councilman who lived near Chinatown was walking past. Shots rang out between what is said to be two Chinese men, although details are scant. A stray bullet killed the councilman.

An angry mob of more than 600 white people — loggers, fishermen, miners and merchants — filled the streets, said Jean Pfaelzer, author of “Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans.”

A gallows was erected. An effigy of a Chinese man swung from a noose.

CALIFORNIA

White residents burned this California Chinatown to the ground. An apology came 145 years later

July 26, 2021

Someone suggested slaughtering the Chinese, but that was deemed un-Christian, Pfaelzer said. Others said they should burn Chinatown, but its scrap wood buildings belonged to a white man, since the Chinese were not allowed to own property.

They instead appointed a committee of 15 men to go into Chinatown and order everyone to leave. The sheriff commissioned wagons to gather their belongings. Armed vigilantes roamed on horseback.

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According the the Clarke Museum website, a group of Chinese and Japanese people were secretly brought in to work in a local cannery but were expelled after being found out. They were sent by barge to an island in Humboldt Bay before catching a ship back to Washington. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The next morning, about 300 Chinese people were marched to the wharf and eventually loaded onto two steamships: The Humboldt and The City of Chester.

They were shipped to San Francisco, where no one knew they were coming, Pfaelzer said. They disembarked and fled.

A few dozen sued the city of Eureka, but a judge tossed out their lawsuit.

The purge, which became known as the “Eureka method,” was copied in other towns across California and hailed by white people as nonviolent.

By 1890, the business directory for Humboldt County was boasting that it was “the only county in the state containing no Chinamen.” A Eureka law, in effect until the mid-20th century, banned Chinese people from working in the city.

::

Eureka’s Chinatown consisted of one square block, bottom center, in what is now the city’s downtown. The city forced expelled its Chinese residents in 1885 after the shooting death of a white city councilman. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

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In the spring of 2021, a gunman killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at three Atlanta-area spas.

The shootings sparked an outpouring of activism and calls to #StopAsianHate. They followed months of heightened attacks on Asian Americans amid a political climate in which then-President Trump was calling the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu.”

Around that time, D’Souza had set up an Instagram account she called APA Humboldt.

D’Souza quickly heard from a local group of Asian Americans who had organized a series of Japanese taiko drum performances before the pandemic.

They began meeting virtually. Their numbers grew. There was a real hunger for community in this county where only 3% of the population is Asian or Pacific Islander.

The group delved into local history, poring through legal briefs, census data, letters, maps and journals to piece together the little-known story of Eureka’s Chinatown, which had been told mostly from a white perspective.

“We all had an awakening of sorts,” D’Souza said. “There was no awareness that there was once a thriving Chinese community here … and they faced the same kind of discrimination and racism that we’re still facing today.”

D’Souza figured they would install a plaque before her baby came, and that would be that.

Eureka’s Chinatown, pictured in the late 19th century.(Courtesy of Jean Pfaelzer)

But what became known as the Eureka Chinatown Project — the work of the group now called Humboldt Asians & Pacific Islanders in Solidarity — blossomed.

With support from the city, they erected signs describing the expulsion in Historic Chinatown — which, today, is a downtown business district with banks, parking lots and no trace of the neighborhood that once stood.

There are plans for a monument.

And — with a mural and a renamed roadway — the Eureka Chinatown Project honored two local Chinese American pioneers whose legacies were too little known.

. . . .

********************

Read the complete article at the link.

We can’t build for a better future on the positive foundations of America without honestly acknowledging, discussing, and addressing the racism and injustices of the past. The GOP “history deniers” are hamstringing our nation!

You can trace today’s rise in anti-Asian-American hate crimes, anti-Asian racial slurs from a former President, and snarky “anti-woke proclamations” from DeSantis directly to the ugliest truths about America’s past. 

And, just because the latter can speak in complete sentences doesn’t mean that he isn’t just as dangerous to democracy and unsuited to public office as Donald Trump! White Nationalist theocracy and lies are bad for our country no matter who utters them. 

DeSantis’s self-proclaimed “Red Florida Paradise” also relies on the hard work of migrants, many of them undocumented, and some other charitable out of state benefactors to literally remain above water: Joe Biden, Democrats, and lots of “Blue State taxpayers:”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has been a persistent critic of President Joe Biden on nearly every policy front as he moves toward a likely potential 2024 presidential bid. But the Florida Republican likes one thing about the president: his wallet.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/03/desantis-federal-relief-cash-fund-priorities-00060020

DeSantis is every bit the charlatan, flim-flam man, would-be theocrat, and purveyor of a whitewashed version of US “history that never was” as Trump. (Concededly, unlike Trump, he actually has won the popular vote in elections.) Under our system, if Floridians have the colossal bad judgement to elect him, that’s their call (although at some point, it could get tiresome for the rest of us to keep bailing them out). But, they have no right to inflict him on the rest of our nation. For the sake of democracy, humanity, and integrity, the rest of us must insure that DeSantis remains where he belongs — below the “Florida-Georgia line.”

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-14-22

🇺🇸 MIGRANTS, W/ OR W/O DOCS, ARE AGAIN BAILING OUT FLA, DESPITE DeSANTIS’S RACIST STUNTS — Don’t Expect Reality To Change The White Nationalist False Narrative!

https://apple.news/AFdtHuzYiQS-N1caP0gT6UA

Ciara Nugent
Ciara Nugent
Staff Writer
Time
PHOTO: Time.com

From Time Maggie:

Migrants Are Leading Clean-up Efforts in Florida, Despite DeSantis’ Crusade Against Them

Migrant workers are flooding-in to help Florida rebuild after Hurricane Ian, even as Governor Ron DeSantis wages a crusade against them.

CIARA NUGENT

Three days after Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on Sept. 28 as a Category 4 storm, Johnny Aburto arrived in Port Charlotte, a mostly white community of 64,000, popular with retirees, on the state’s southwestern coast. The town suffered extensive damage during the storm: roofs blown off, homes flooded, power lines downed. There is a lot of work to be done.

Aburto, 42, is here to do it. Originally from Nicaragua, he is part of a large, informal, overwhelmingly immigrant workforce that travels the U.S. cleaning up after increasingly frequent climate-related disasters. Once a hurricane hits, these crews are bussed in by contractors desperate for workers, or they drive to the area themselves and wait in Walmart or Home Depot parking lots to be picked up for a day’s work. Aburto, a skilled laborer, was in New Orleans after Katrina in 2005, Baton Rouge after Louisiana’s floods in 2016, Panama City Beach after Michael in 2018, and Lake Charles after Laura in 2020. “These kinds of events really affect people,” he says. “We do our bit to help them.”

In Port Charlotte, Aburto is now busy covering roofs with tarpaulins—a crucial first step to keep homes safe from future rain, so that power can be restored and residents can come back. He’s also cleaning out soaked debris from interiors. When that kind of work is done, he says, many of his colleagues will stay on to make more permanent repairs.

. . . .

*****************

Read the complete article at the link.

Sadly, America has a long disreputable history of denying the humanity and rights of those whose labor and skills built our nation and made it great. African Americans,  Chinese-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Haitian-Americans, and many others have all felt the sting of racism, demonizing myths, dehumanization, exploitation, and grotesque ingratitude. 

I happen to be reading UVA Professor Amanda Frost’s outstanding book on “citizenship stripping.” I was struck by this quote about the exploitation of Mexican workers during the “Bracero Program” which was followed by “Operation Wetback” — the Eisenhower Administration’s totally illegal mass removal of Mexicans, including lawful immigrants and U.S. citizens!

“As one grower put it, “We used to own our slaves. Now we just rent them.” 51”

You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers by Amanda Frost

https://a.co/0BsTPuZ

Amanda Frost
Amanda Frost
Professor UVA Law
Author, “You Are Not American: Citizenship Stripping from Dred Scott to the Dreamers “
PHOTO: UVA Law

It would be nice to think this time will be different — that we have advanced as a nation. But, I wouldn’t bank on it!

Floridians have a golden opportunity to replace DeSantis with a real Governor, Charlie Crist, who would serve all people, use government resources prudently, and govern in the public interest. Polls, however, say that such a “Florida epiphany” is unlikely. But, it’s still possible.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-08-22

📖COURTSIDE HISTORY: BEYOND THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT, RACISM IS AT THE CORE OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY — Professor Andrew S. Rosenberg Interviewed On New Book By Isabela Dias @ Mother Jones!

Isabela Dias
Isabela Dias
Staff Writer, Immigration & Social Issues
Mother Jones
PHOTO: Twitter
Professor Andrew S. Rosenberg
Professor Andrew S. Rosenberg
Assistant Professor of Political Science
U of Florida
PHOTO: Website

https://apple.news/AOMcfZiMFQ0OSgozcppDcjg

“Undesirable Immigrants: Why Racism Persists in International Migration”

. . . .

In the book, you dispute the assumption that the right to border control and to exclude foreigners is an inherent feature of sovereign states. Instead, you frame it as a “modern consequence of racism.” Why do you see it that way?

The nation-state is a relatively modern invention on the scale of human history. Today, we have this conventional wisdom floating around that it is the natural right and duty of nation-states as sovereign entities to be able to restrict foreigners and have these really hard borders—and that it’s that ability that makes a state what it is. Actually, if you go back in time and look at the international legal thought that emerged from the 15th through the 19th centuries on what it actually means to be a state, the commonly held assumption that people like the late Justice [Antonin] Scalia and others talk about, is actually an invention of the 19th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the great thinkers of international legal jurisprudence or of state theory either thought that states had a right or an obligation to be hospitable to foreigners and to allow them free passage into their territory or, at most, it was up for raucous debate. It was only in the 19th century, when immigrant-receiving countries like the United States began receiving a large influx of racially different outsiders like the Chinese, that this presumption that sovereign states have a right and an obligation that can be tied back to their status as sovereign states to restrict outsiders emerged.

People like Texas Governor Greg Abbott seem to invoke that supposed inherent right when they describe migrants at the border as an “invasion.”

Precisely. These types of “declarations of war” are one of the clearest examples of this ideology seeping into public debate, which leads everyday people to create this idea that migrants are undesirable outsiders who are not fit for, or are undeserving of reaping the benefits of living in the United States or participating in our society.

****************

Read the complete interview at the link.

The myth of the “undesirable immigrant” — at the heart of the anti-immigrant rabble rousing of Trump, Miller, Bannon, DeSantis, Abbott, Cotton, Hawley, etc. — has deep roots in American racial history.

I’ve said it many times: There will be neither racial justice nor equal justice for all without justice for immigrants (regardless of status). Laws like the Refugee Act of 1980, that very explicitly make arrival status irrelevant to access to a fair legal process, have been intentionally misinterpreted and misapplied by right-wing judges from the Supremes all the way down to the Immigration Courts. 

Advocates for civil rights, womens’ rights, LGBTQ+ rights, voting rights, disability rights, and other fundamental rights that have been unlawfully restricted or diminished, usually, but certainly not exclusively, by the right, who continue to ignore the primacy of dealing with the intentional unfair, racially biased treatment of migrants do so at their own peril!

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

08-12-22

🤮 UGLY HISTORY OF RACISM & BIAS INFECTS U.S. REFUGEE RESPONSES!

Laura Alexander
Dr. Laura Alexander
Goldstein Family Chair in Human Rights
Assistant Professor
U. of Nebraska-Omaha
PHOTO: UNO

https://theconversation.com/how-race-and-religion-have-always-played-a-role-in-who-gets-refuge-in-the-us-181700?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20April%2028%202022%20-%202276322632&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20April%2028%202022%20-%202276322632+Version+B+CID_a6f7cc645a264986686de82dd759a5c6&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=How%20race%20and%20religion%20have%20always%20played%20a%20role%20in%20who%20gets%20refuge%20in%20the%20US

From The Conversation:

How race and religion have always played a role in who gets refuge in the US

Laura E. Alexander Published: April 28, 2022 8.21am EDT

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Ukrainian refugees wait near the U.S. border in Tijuana, Mexico. AP Photo/Gregory Bull

In the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country as refugees. Hundreds of those refugees have now arrived at the southern border of the United States seeking asylum, after flying to Mexico on tourist visas.

At the border, Ukrainians, alongside thousands of other asylum seekers, must navigate two policies meant to keep people out. The first is the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” a U.S. government action initiated by the Trump administration in December 2018 and known informally as “Remain in Mexico.” The second is Title 42, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directive crafted in 2020, ostensibly to protect public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The directive expels all irregular immigrants (those without permanent residency or a visa in hand) and asylum seekers who try to enter the U.S. by land.

On March 11, 2022, however, the Biden administration provided guidance allowing Customs and Border Protection officers to exempt Ukrainians from Title 42 on a case-by-case basis, which has allowed many families to enter. However, this exception has not been granted to other asylum seekers, no matter what danger they are in. It is possible that the administration may lift Title 42 at the end of May 2022, but that plan has encountered fierce debates.

The different treatment of Ukrainian versus Central American, African, Haitian and other asylum seekers has prompted criticism that the administration is enforcing immigration policies in racist ways, favoring white, European, mostly Christian refugees over other groups.

This issue is not new. As scholars of religion, race, immigration, and racial and religious politics in the United States, we study both historical and current immigration policy. We argue that U.S. refugee and asylum policy has long been racially and religiously discriminatory in practice.

Chinese asylum seekers

Race played a major role in who counted as a refugee during the early years of the Cold War. The displacement of millions fleeing communist regimes in Eastern Europe and East Asia created humanitarian crises in both places.

Under significant international pressure, Congress passed the 1953 Refugee Relief Act. According to historian Carl Bon Tempo, in the minds of President Dwight Eisenhower and most lawmakers, “refugee” meant “anticommunist European.” The text and implementation of the act reflected this. Of the 214,000 visas set aside for refugees, the law designated a quota of only 5,000 spots for Asians (2,000 for Chinese and 3,000 for “Far Eastern” refugees). Ultimately, approximately 9,000 Chinese (including 6,862 Chinese wives of U.S. citizens who came as nonquota migrants) were admitted under the 1953 refugee law, compared with nearly 200,000 southern and eastern Europeans, over the next three years.

Racial prejudice impacted the international response to refugees as well. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, United Nations officials had declared the displaced population in Europe a humanitarian crisis and appealed to the international community to relieve these pressures by accepting refugees. Over the next decade, Western nations including the U.S., France and Great Britain received millions of displaced Europeans as part of a larger Cold War public relations strategy to contain the Soviet Union and demonstrate the superiority of Western capitalist societies to life behind the Iron Curtain.

Millions of ethnic Chinese displaced by the 1949 Communist Revolution were not greeted so kindly. In the early 1950s, Hong Kong’s population tripled due to mainland Chinese fleeing civil war and communist rule, triggering a crisis. Most Western countries, however, continued to exclude Chinese and other Asians from immigrating and made few exceptions for refugees.

In the United States, exclusionary provisions that barred Asians from immigrating as “aliens ineligible to citizenship” would not be removed from immigration law until the 1965 Immigration Act.

Haitian asylum seekers

The first Haitian asylum seekers, who are overwhelmingly Black, attempted to reach the U.S. in boats in 1963 during the dictatorship of Francois Duvalier. It was a period of great economic inequality and severe violent repression of political opposition in Haiti.

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Haitian refugees who were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard returning to Port-au-Prince after being repatriated in 1992. AP Photo/Daniel Morel

Between 1973 and 1991, more than 80,000 Haitians tried to seek asylum in the U.S. The U.S., however, consistently attempted to intercept and turn back boats carrying Haitian asylum seekers to avoid having to hear their cases.

In the 1980s and 1990s, nearly every single Haitian who tried to request asylum was either denied or turned away. Some disparities between asylum rates could be explained by political factors, particularly the U.S. government’s interest in prioritizing refugees from communist countries.

However, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and the 11th Circuit Court both found, in Haitian Refugee Center v. Civiletti and Jean v. Nelson respectively, that racial discrimination could be the only reason for such strikingly different outcomes for Haitians. In Jean v. Nelson, the 11th Circuit heard evidence from plaintiffs that there was a less than two-in-1 billion chance that Haitians would be denied parole so consistently if immigration policies were applied in racially neutral ways. Both courts also noted the differences in outcomes of asylum claims between Cuban refugees, who were predominantly white, and Haitian refugees.

In the same time period, even while Black Haitian asylum seekers were being turned away, European immigrants, who were primarily white, received preference in the Diversity Visa system created by the Immigration Act of 1990. Northern Ireland, for example, was designated as a separate country from the United Kingdom, and 40% of “diversity transition” visas allocated during 1992 to 1994 were earmarked for Irish immigrants.

Similar accusations of racism and discriminatory treatment have surfaced over the last several months as Haitian asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border have been forced onto flights to Haiti and have faced degrading treatment.

Syrian refugees and the Muslim ban

Beginning in January 2017, President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders described by many refugee advocates as the “Muslim Ban.” The ban suspended the entry of people from majority-Muslim countries, including Syrians, and limited the number of refugee admissions of several majority-Muslim countries.

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Few Syrian refugees were allowed into the U.S. In this photo, Syrian refugees wait to be approved to get into Jordan. AP Photo/Raad Adayleh, File

Syrian refugees, most of whom fled the Syrian civil war that began in 2011 and violence by the Islamic State, were specifically targeted in the Muslim Ban.

A February 2017 version of the Muslim Ban claimed that Syrian refugees were “detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend[ed]” from admission, with few exceptions. This contributed to a significant decrease in the number of Syrian refugees – from 12,587 to 76 between financial year 2016 to 2018.

Research shows that religion, particularly Islam, is used to create symbolic boundaries of racial distinction in order to promote immigration enforcement goals. Specifically, the government attempted to justify an exclusionary refugee policy based on race and religion by implicating Muslims and refugees in terrorism, as Trump did in speeches, even calling Syrians the “trojan horse” for terrorism.

International agreements for refugees and asylum seekers clearly state that admissions should be based on need. In principle, U.S. law says this as well. But these key moments in United States history show how race, religion and other factors play a role in determining who is in, and who is out.

While refugees from the war in Ukraine deserve support from the United States and other countries, the contrast between the treatment of different groups of refugees shows that the process of gaining refuge in the United States is still far from equitable.

[Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture. Sign up for This Week in Religion.]

******************

Yup!

And, the ongoing grotesque abuses of Title 42 to target refugees of color is Exhibit A! So, why are some “tone deaf” Democrats advocating this racist action?

  • Because the polls tell them is “politically expedient” to favor racism?
  • Because racism at the border and in the immigration system are thought to be “below the radar screen?” 
  • Because dead refugees of color “don’t matter?”
  • Or, put another way, because the lives of refugees of color don’t matter? 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

05-02-22

☹️THEY WORKED DANGEROUS JOBS, PUT FOOD ON OUR TABLES DURING THE PANDEMIC, & ARE MEMBERS OF A GROUP WHO PAID $9 BILLION IN U.S. TAXES — Their “Reward” Has Been A Short-Sighted “Slap In The Face” That Also Penalizes More Than 1 Million U.S. Citizen Children! — Julia Preston Reports For The Marshall Project

Julia Preston
Julia Preston
American Journalist
The Marshall Project

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/12/15/essential-but-excluded

https://elpais.com/internacional/2021-12-15/esenciales-pero-excluidos.html

Essential but Excluded

Immigrants put seafood on America’s tables. But many have been shut out of pandemic aid — and so have their U.S. citizen children.

By JULIA PRESTON and ARIEL GOODMAN

****************

Somewhat reminiscent of how the Chinese workers who were key to building the transcontinental railroad were “rewarded” with the Chinese Exclusion Act and more than a century of anti-Asian bias and hate that continues today.

See, e.g., https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/31/history-chinese-workers-made-america-great-by-building-the-transcontinental-railway-their-reward-from-a-racist-nation-deportation-exclusion-bias/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/05/10/courtside-history-beyond-trumps-mythical-white-nationalist-nation-lets-see-who-besides-enslaved-african-american-forced-migrants-did-the-work-that-made-america-gre/

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2021/03/31/%f0%9f%a4%ae%e2%98%a0%ef%b8%8f%e2%9a%b0%ef%b8%8f%f0%9f%91%8e%f0%9f%8f%bbhistory-of-hate-misogyny-vilification-racist-hate-directed-at-asian-women-has-deep-roots-in-u-s-law-jessica/

☹️Unfortunately, America has a long unhappy history of mistreating, exploiting, and demonizing immigrants whose hard work, courage, and perserverance against the odds built our nation into what it is today! Old habits of bias, ingratitude, false racial supremacy, and vilification of “the other” — or at least the “perceived other,” since in truth we’re all important parts of the real America  — are hard to break. But, it would be a real boost for our nation and humanity if we could overcome the darker part of our past and move forward as one.

Thanks for sending this important piece my way, Julia!

🇺🇸🗽Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-17-21

🌽🥔🍠🌶🥑FOOD MATTERS! — PORTLAND FOOD PANTRY CATERS TO IMMIGRANT, ETHNIC COMMUNITIES IN MAINE!  

Gillian Graham
Gillian Graham
Staff Writer
Portland Press Herald

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/21/a-portland-food-program-learns-what-foods-immigrants-in-need-want-most/

Gillian Graham reports for the Portland Press Herald:

During the five years Betsy Paz-Gyimesi has been working as an interpreter and engagement specialist for Spanish-speaking families in Portland schools, she has seen the same scene play out many times.

When they go for help to a food pantry, they’re offered food they will not eat. Some are afraid of canned foods because they believe they are dangerous. Others have cultural or religious needs that aren’t met by the American items on the pantry shelves.

Most of the families Paz-Gyimesi works with come from Central America, and they don’t all qualify for benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and other similar programs. Because there are few options for them at the food pantry, their children often rely heavily on schools for meals, Paz-Gyimesi said.

But that will begin to change next month as Wayside Food Programs in Portland launches a pilot program to better address food insecurity in immigrant communities by providing food packs customized to the needs and preferences of those receiving emergency assistance.

Working with leaders of immigrant communities, Wayside developed lists of basic pantry items they commonly use and a guide to their specific food preferences that can be used by other food programs, said Mary Zwolinski, Wayside’s executive director.

“Our hope is that it helps with the issue of food equity,” she said.

The pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted Maine’s racial and ethnic minorities, laid bare that the state’s existing emergency food structure was not adequately serving all of their needs. Some of the people most vulnerable to hunger didn’t access existing food programs. When they did, many did not find food – Jasmine rice, dried fish, pork-free products – that fit their cultural, religious and dietary restrictions and preferences.

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Nice effort! Maine has been a bastion of community cooperation, creative encouragement of, and positive interaction with immigrant communities! Seems like a good model that can be replicated throughout America. Read the full article at the link!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

11-22-21

🇺🇸🗽⚖️NDPA VIRTUAL OPPORTUNITY: Meet Rising Superstar 🌟  & Social Justice Advocate Denea Joseph, Current Ousley Social Justice Resident @ Beloit College — Friday, Sept. 17 @ 7:00 PM CDT — FREE Virtual Link Here!

Of interest? You can join virtually.

———- Forwarded message ———

From: Atiera Lauren Coleman <colemana@beloit.edu>

Date: Wed, Sep 8, 2021 at 3:10 PM

Subject: [EVENT] Ousley Residency: All Black Lives Matter: Black Immigrants and the Immigrants’ Rights Movement

To: <facstaff@lists.beloit.edu>

Ousley Residency Keynote Speaker

Denea Joseph

Friday, September 17, 7:00 PM – In-person & Virtual – (Add to Google Calendar)

BTYB – Student Success, Equity, and Community and the Weissberg Program in Human Rights & Social Justice

The Office of Student Success, Equity & Community Ousley Scholar In Residency honors the legacy of Grace Ousley, the first black woman to graduate from Beloit College. It is a junior scholar/activist/organizer/intellectual committed to the theory and practice of social justice. They should embody the “academic hustler” who fights for “social justice” in all aspects of their work. Support for the residency comes from the Weissberg Program in Human Rights and Social Justice and the Office of Student Success. Equity & Community.

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Event Details

Date: Friday, September 17, 2021

Time: 7:00 PM -8:30 PM

How to attend

In-person – Weissberg Auditorium – Powerhouse

Virtual – Join Zoom Meeting  https://beloit.zoom.us/j/81172664933

 

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This promises to be a great program! And, the Ousley Residence Program is a fantastic contribution to educating and inspiring new generations of Americans about the many challenges still facing us in achieving social justice in our nation.

The abrogation of due process and dehumanization of people of color has, outrageously, become part of the dysfunctional U.S. Immigration Court System. The last Administration specifically encouraged and promoted this ugly, anti-democracy, phenomenon and then used it to spearhead an all-out assault on racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ rights, religious tolerance, economic progress, voter rights, and humane progressive values throughout American society.

Unfortunately, many progressives have been slow to “connect the dots” and insist that meaningful social justice change start with fixing the racial and gender bias problems in our Immigration Courts, tribunals that are under the complete control of the Biden Administration!

For example, current Attorney General Merrick Garland rather incredibly claims to be standing up for women’s rights in Texas and defending voting rights for minorities while continuing to run misogynistic, regressive “Star Chambers” at EOIR, staffed with many judges hand-selected by Jeff Sessions and Billy Barr, and tossing vulnerable women refugees of color back across our Southern Border into harm’s way without any “process” at all, let alone “Due Process of Law.” Garland also continues to enable human rights abuses in the “New American Gulag” of DHS civil detention! We can see this process of dehumanization of the “other” before the law, called “Dred Scottification” by many of us, spreading throughout our legal system and being endorsed and “normalized” all the way up to the Supremes.

From the summary in the announcement above, it appears that Denea, based on her own inspiring life and achievements as a “Dreamer,” will help us to “connect the dots” between racial justice, immigrant justice, and equal justice for all. Immigrants’ Rights = Human Rights = Everyone’s Rights!

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-09-21