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That is frustrating. I do wish skilled immigration was generally very permissive in the US. Even though it already directly impacts my ability to get programming jobs (my profession).
I've always had a sense that "stop illegal immigration" is the bailey while "stop all immigration" is the motte. I think Vivek and Elon didn't realize that when they waded into the H1-B visa debate a few weeks ago.
There is this weird emotion I get watching anti-immigration stuff. Its maybe like being the first hipster in your grade level that gets into music, and you find all these awesome classic rock songs. And then everyone else starts getting into music and they just like pop garbage. Don't read too much into that metaphor. Its just the feeling.
I recently joined a family society. On my mother's side we can trace our ancestry back in the US to the 1620's. My dad's family is what I consider more recent immigrants. They came here about 150 years ago sometime after the Civil war. My dad is anti-immigration, my mom is not.
... I just realized what the feeling is. Its elitism. I feel a sense of elitism over most of the anti-immigration people I personally run into. Just as a matter of demographics most people in the US came here or are descendants of people that came here within the last 100 years. The same way that you might look at a guy with a broken hispanic accent who just attained citizenship saying "shut down the border" is how I look at most people saying "shut down the border". Or the same way you might look at a person, still dripping wet after pulling themself onto the lifeboat and saying "we can't let anyone else on".
"Hey scum stop talking about founding stock as if you are part of the founding stock, you are a recent jumped up German immigrant. Be happy we let you in and stop trying to gate keep." Is what I'd say in my head to my dad if we was annoying enough to talk about "founding stock".
Anyways, I hope the political winds shift back on this issue. Middle class immigrants seem like the best immigrant class to get, I don't understand why the US makes it so hard.
I don't want African Muslims in my neighborhoods, and I don't want giant Hindu statues erected in America. I simply do not want more immigrants right now, because the ones we have are not integrating, and there is no reason for them to try.
We need sixty years, two generations, of essentially no immigrants in order to stabilize. The is what we've done in the past, and it had resulted in prosperity and community those times.
As for my bona fides, I don't have any known ancestors in the 17th century, but both sides have borderer roots in the middle 18th century.
Both sides also have Italian, and other immigrant stock, from the early 20th century. Italian great-grandmothers, that sort of thing.
Those borderer men crossed the Cumberland gap and settled Tennessee, and I think they earned the right to bequeath the country they forged to their posterity, and not to, again, African Muslims and Hindus who do not share their blood, their religion, or their values.
Seriously though, it's an embarrassment that people like Ilhan Omar an get elected as a foreign agent in Minnesota, or Jayapal can do the same in Washington. If that is the result of this immigration, then no thank you, we're not full you're simply not welcome here.
Any man who says he is American by something else besides is no American at all, and any American who carries a hyphen carries with him a dagger to plunge into the back of the American nation.
Last thing, you mixed up motte and bailey. The defensible motte is no illegal immigration. The bailey is no more foreigners, denaturalize and deport the paper citizens, too.
Ah ya I did mix up the motte and bailey.
Anyways most of the US was settled by 1870, some parts were a little more filled in, and they were done by 1900. That's why I like civil war as a good cutoff. Plus the civil war shaped the nation just as heavily as the revolutionary war.
We have above us an example of a more American person than most actual Americans.
My ancestors founded this country, and it was based on an idea, not blood. A bunch of nationalist and monarch loving central Europeans started coming over in the 1900's and started trying to make it all about blood. If it's blood then the English, the Dutch, and the descendants of slaves can stay and everyone else can fuck off.
A bunch of them even think that fighting in European and Asian wars (aka every 20th century war) should grant them special consideration. Yuck.
My ancestors founded this country and trying to explain to them it's not about blood and their posterity but about "an idea," would leave them very puzzled. And to be frank, I would be pretty shocked if your ancestors didn't either. The writings of the time, e.g., a relative of mine died in King Phillip's War, make it pretty clear they were concerned with blood at least as a rally against the Indians (and later black slaves).
I encourage anyone who qualifies to participate in the various family societies like the Sons of the American Revolution. They average age may be 75, but they're good people and are a great way to feel more apart of wherever you live.
Oh yes, the German and especially catholic waves of immigrants post 1850 were a terrible idea and many, including my ancestors at the time, repeatedly said so. It's only gotten worse since then.
Palatine German immigration to the USA began around ~1709, it reached its height from the 1720 - 1750.
so not the "German and especially catholic waves of immigrants post 1850"?
They're German but very pre-1850 and heavily / mostly Protestant.
I probably should have phrased that part as "post-1850 German and especially Catholic immigration... ." I didn't mean to include the earlier anabaptists in that sentence.
Yes, also Lutherans and Reformed (Calvinist).
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