President Theodore Roosevelt on Immigration ( vanity )

1/18/14 | sushiman

[sushiman]

Positions on immigration, minorities, and civil rights :

In an 1894 article on immigration, Roosevelt said, "We must Americanize in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at relations between church and state. We welcome the German and the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such..... He must revere only our flag, not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second."

Roosevelt took an active interest in immigration, and within months of assuming the presidency had launched an extensive reorganization of the federal immigration depot at Ellis Island. Roosevelt himself "straddled the immigration question," taking the position that "we cannot have too much immigration of the right sort, and we should have none whatever of the wrong sort." As president, his stated preferences were relatively inclusive, across the then diverse and mostly European sources of immigration:

It is unwise to depart from the old American tradition and discriminate for or against any man who desires to come here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that man's fitness for citizenship..... We can not afford to consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether he is Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian, or Scandinavian or Magyar. What we should desire to find out is the individual quality of the individual man

[umgud]

We can not afford to consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile;

I guess he forgot mooslims.

[ansel12]

We need to just take a 50 year break from immigration, it is destroying us.

If in 50 years or so we decide that we need to start importing foreigners again, then we can, Lord knows there will always be billions available.

[knarf]

America only HAD catholic, protestant, jew and gentile.

[knarf]

I’m with YOU, Ansell2

[Nea Wood]

We need to just take a 50 year break from immigration, it is destroying us.

Absolutely. There will be screaming and wailing and drama and protests and tons of sob stories in the media, but it MUST be done. Citizens should demand this, push for it hard. It simply must be done, or we are through.

[Tax-chick]

All non-Jews are Gentiles, so if he’d said, “Jew or Gentile,” that would have covered every possibility.

[cripplecreek]

Too bad he was a scumbag progressive.

[Vince Ferrer]

Much sooner than 50 years from now we will be begging for people to come, but they won’t want to. More people will be trying to leave.

[ansel12]

No, that won’t happen.

[knarf]

politicians love lists and agenda's, menu's and collections of talking points.

< / s >

[Vince Ferrer]

No, that won’t happen.

People have immigrated here primarily for two reasons, economic opportunity, and political freedom. Is the economic opportunity increasing, or decreasing? Is the political freedom increasing, or decreasing?

The US for generations has been a beacon of freedom. Are we seen that way by people outside anymore? Where is the growth worldwide, is that in the US? No, it is almost everywhere else except the US. We have been largely oblivious to the growth outside the US, but worldwide the world is the richest it has ever been. These two photos are 26 years apart.

For the past two hundred years or so the government has encouraged immigration to provide economic growth. But we are now, for the first time, in a situation where growth is very slow, and might start contracting, whether people immigrate or not. Yet our economic model, especially our entitlements, require growth to work.

Right now our birth rate is below replacement levels, and so the government cannot pay for the entitlements. So they want immigrants. But immigrants will not come if there is nothing in it for them. If the government becomes more and more oppressive in an attempt to extract money, the immigration we have grown dependant upon will shut off entirely.

Right now immigration from Mexico has reportedly dropped to near zero. Sure they can get Somalians to come over, but how productive are Somalians without a lot of help assimilating? Can we pay our debts by taxing Somalians? And eventually, even these people may balk at coming, because there may be better place to go.

Low birth rate and not enough immigration produces a spiral of collapse where we can't pay our entitlements and debts, which leads to more financial repression and taxation, which feeds more uncertainty and depression, which leads to a lower birth rate and lower immigration, which feeds the economic collapse in a death spiral.

[ansel12]

Yeah, it isn’t going to happen, we won’t be desperate for third world bodies, and the third world won’t be refusing to come here.

America has an endless supply of people if we accept them, we can reach a billion easily, and are headed that way.

[familyop]

True. If we started favoring family immigration again instead of favoring the foreign wealthy and slaves, we would again see more immigrants happy to assimilate. Immigration due to marriage is very expensive and sometimes difficult—especially with so many other social, business and political policies working against real families.

[familyop]

True.

[Ray76]

Immigration from Mexico is 2.5 times that of Europe.

Immigration from one country, Mexico, is 2.5 times that of many countries combined.

I've taken the figures from the above table at cis.org and graphed them.

Note the sharp increase in immigration from Mexico and how that differs from all other regions' increase. Note also the sharp decline in immigration from Europe while all other regions have increased.

Roughly 63% of illegals are Mexican.

“As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States”

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/unauthorized-immigrant-population-brnational-and-state-trends-2010/

Then see Figure 2 at http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/02/01/ii-current-estimates-and-trends/

The main article is at the first link. Be sure to check the Appendices.

Our immigration policy must serve our needs, our ability to absorb, and immigrants' ability to assimilate. Creating large sub-societies serves no good purpose.

Our security can not be conditioned upon the demands of unassimilated immigrants or illegally present foreigners.

[sushiman]

Thanks for sharing the photo . Every picture tells a story .

[sushiman]

Thanks for this . Confirms what I already suspected , and I don’t even reside in rhe US .

[JimRed]

Big difference between early progressives, who loved this country, and today’s progressives who want to transform it.