The opinion/editorial page of the Wall Street Journal features an article Peggy Noonan has written that I consider to be a fair analysis. It expresses her opinion on immigration, and does so in a quite agreeable way. Her article expresses, in kind, generous terms, the good that can come from immigrants. It also expresses the harm and havoc that can come from breaking the laws. It's a little long, but worth the read.
I certainly wish President Bush and some of our other leaders would take the time to read it as well. They should pay special attention to the final paragraph.
3 comments:
Excellent!
Peggy Noonan is one of my favorite columnists.
Michael Powell's article in Washington Post refutes her statement.
Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan, wrote about her Irish forebears in a Wall Street Journal column: "They waited in line. They passed the tests. They had to get permission to come. . . . They had to get through Ellis Island . . . get questioned and eyeballed by a bureaucrat with a badge."
But these accounts are flawed, historians say. Until 1918, the United States did not require passports; the term "illegal immigrant" had no meaning. New arrivals were required only to prove their identity and find a relative or friend who could vouch for them.
Customs agents kept an eye out for lunatics and the infirm (and after 1905, for anarchists). Ninety-eight percent of the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island were admitted to the United States, and 78 percent spent less than eight hours on the island. (The Mexico-United States border then was unguarded and freely crossed in either direction.) "Shipping companies did the health inspections in Europe because they didn't want to be stuck taking someone back," said Nancy Foner, a sociology professor at Hunter College and author of "From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration." "Eventually they introduced a literacy test," she added, "but it was in the immigrant's own language, not English."
Here is the article link.
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