Trump’s New Immigration Plan … It’s Older than Him

When the First Continental Congress met initially in 1774,  fifty-six delegates came from 13 colonies. Nine of those 56 men—about 15%-- were born in another country (four from Ireland; two from England; two from Scotland; and the highly influential Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies.

One of the first acts of Congress was an immigration law. It was called the Naturalization Act of 1790. If a person resided in the U.S. for two or more years, was a “free white” male, and had good moral character, they could be approved for “naturalization”—a legal grant of U.S. citizenship.

With the influx of Chinese laborers in the 1860s to build the transcontinental railroad and work in gold and silver mines, white workers felt threatened. This led Congress to pass an openly racist law— the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Many whites favored the law because they feared the “Yellow Peril,” a derogatory reference to skin color.

This law prohibited all Chinese laborers from entering the U.S.; and later expanded to include “ethnic Chinese.” That meant if a child was born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, that person could not be admitted to the U.S. if he left the country.

The law stayed on the books until 1943.

A similar law was passed to exclude Japanese workers, beginning in 1907.

But that wasn’t enough for white nationalist political leaders. In 1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national immigration quotas. The quotas were based on the number of foreign-born residents of each nationality who were living in the United States as of the 1910 census.

That put a very low lid on immigration.

But that wasn’t enough, still, for white nationalist leaders. So, in 1924, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act)—but that wasn’t enough, either, so Congress amended that law with the National Origins Formula. That dialed back immigration from each country to a quota that was proportional to its population in the U.S. as of the 1890 census.

The official U.S. population in 1890 was nearly 68 million, though some people put the figure as low as 62 million and as high as 75 million. In 1890, the U.S. population had 107,000 Chinese (12,500 citizens)—that is, .02 percent of its total.  So, taking the .02 percent quota figure, under the 1924 law the Chinese quota was 214 newly admitted Chinese. 
The effect? America grew proportionally whiter. The Chinese population in the U.S. was about 75,000 in 1930 and about 77,000 in 1940-- down sharply from the 1890 census of 107,000. 

As America entered the 1960s as a world superpower and example for global freedom, this 80-year-old racist immigration system was seen as a national embarrassment. 
While the current diversity immigration program came about in 1990, the model for it was set in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. 
In the House, the bill was approved on a 320 to 70 vote; and in the Senate, on a 76 to 18.

Since that time, more than 18 million legal immigrants entered the United States.

President Trump favors the proposed Cotton-Perdue plan (which would end the diversity immigration program and re-set U.S. immigration policy along the lines of the 1924 National Origin’s Formula). 
But it's a merit plan, right? No-- it's an English fluency plan, a sham way of saying whites only.
And, eight years after Trump's model 1924 law was passed, along with the 1930 Smoot Hawley Tariff Act—designed to save jobs for Americans— unemployment was officially 25% in 1933 and remained stubbornly high, at 15% by 1940.

Putting America first is really a recipe for hurting Americans.