#Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965

[creepingsharia]

Minnesota: Muslim immigrants are running for office, winning and reshaping the state’s politics

As Minneapolis burns, it’s clear how electing foreign Muslims - and white, far-left liberals - is working out. **More links at end of post

Also note the subtle racism now pervasive in the media, and by the Muslim author, where they capitalize the word black but not white. The article simultaneously highlights black, mostly Muslim, immigrants rise in politics while leaving unsaid that non-immigrant black Americans are being leap frogged by immigrants. Supposedly a good thing.

Young, educated and Black: Here’s how Minnesota’s politicians with African roots are reshaping the state’s politics.

 by Ibrahim Hirsi

Barely four years ago, the highest-ranking elected official in the community was Abdi Warsame, a Somali immigrant who was sworn into the Minneapolis City Council in January 2014. 

Now, the state can count at least 13 Black immigrant elected officials, including U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar; state Representatives Mohamud Noor and Hodan Hassan; and Mayor Mike Elliott of Brooklyn Center. 

In the DFL August primary, a few more Black immigrants emerged victorious. Among them are 30-year-old Omar Fateh, who will likely win a seat in the State Senate; and 35-year-old Esther Agbaje who secured another likely spot in the State House. 

The surge in the number of Black immigrants seeking elected positions is conspicuous not only in the Twin Cities metro area. It’s also taking place outside the metro area, in cities like Mankato, St. Cloud and Austin. 

...

Near the beginning of his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration Nationality Act of 1965, which opened the doors to non-European immigrants. But he could not have foreseen the full magnitude of the impact the law would have on places like the Twin Cities and beyond. 

Moments before Johnson signed the landmark immigration reform bill into law on Oct. 3, 1965, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty in New York, he downplayed the effects the legislation would have on the United States. “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill,” he reminded Americans during the signing ceremony. “It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives.”

The president was wrong.

The legislation, also known as the Hart-Cellar Act, has affected millions of lives. It’s changed the demographics of metropolitan areas across the nation. It’s driven population growth as birth rates slow for Americans. It’s provided a steady stream of labor for emptying American farms and factories. 

And now, in Minnesota, it’s drawing more Black immigrants to seek political seats in federal, state and local governments. Since 2016, according to an unofficial headcount by Sahan Journal, at least 50 African immigrants have run for public offices in Minnesota.

...

With at least 10 elected officials now serving various public offices, Somalis make up the greatest number of Black immigrants becoming elected officials in Minnesota. Most of them represent neighborhoods that have large concentrations of foreign-born residents. 

In south Minneapolis, for instance, Somalis have elected representatives to a wide range of political offices. The most famous official is, of course, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, whose win in the August DFL primary race for the 5th District likely secured her another term in Washington.

...

The list of elected Somali officials gets longer each cycle: Mohamud Noor and Hodan Hassan serve in the State House; Jamal Osman recently won a special election for a seat to in the city council; Siad Ali joined the city’s school board in 2014; and AK Hassan is a commissioner on the Park Board.

But the Somali community has also gained a foothold more broadly. Warsame, who resigned his post as a Minneapolis councilman early this year, became CEO of Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. In 2019, Hamse Warfa joined the governor’s administration, becoming deputy commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, (DEED). And in June, Anisa Hajimumin became assistant commissioner at DEED.

...

Most of the estimated 20,000 Liberian Americans live in the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities, including Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. Earlier this year, Yakasah Wehyee, the Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, took office as a city council member in Falcon Heights.

Political observers may expect Somalis and Liberians to win some races in cities with large immigrant populations. But African immigrants have started to run for office farther afield, in places like St, Cloud, Mankato, and Austin.

In Austin, Oballa Oballa, 27, is busy these days putting up campaign signs and knocking on doors for his bid to join the city council.

...

The Hart-Cellar Act allowed millions of non-European immigrants to establish permanent homes in the U.S. While Black immigrants make up only 2.5 percent of the state’s population overall in the state, the majority of these residents are concentrated in the Twin Cities metro area.

That concentration has given them not just the political will—and a voting bloc—to pursue state and local elected seats. It’s also allowed them to establish successful businesses, vibrant social hubs, schools and religious centers: institutions that have given Black immigrants a true sense of belonging.   

These candidates don’t just represent African immigrants in the mainstream of Minnesota civic life. Rather, people from Somalia, Liberia, Ethiopia and more have become the mainstream itself.

-----------------------

Another candidate, who wants your guns, via:

Shakopee resident Sahra Odowa running against Eric Pratt

Shakopee resident Sahra Odowa will run for the District 55 seat against GOP incumbent Sen. Eric Pratt in the upcoming election.

And eventually sharia law, as we have seen recently with Islamic call to sharia blasted across neighborhoods 5x a day and night.

Must read: The Scary Answer to Trump’s Question on Ilhan Omar

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Catherynne Valente schools her racist neighbors about the asylum seekers in their midst

[Author Catherynne Valente (previously) posted this outstanding rant to her Facebook page; I asked her permission to repost it here so it would have somewhere to live outside of the zuckerverse and she graciously gave her permission -Cory]

I live in Portland, Maine. We have recently had an influx of African asylum seekers and the city has been scrambling to find shelter and support for them.

Cue NextDoor, that wretched hive of scum and villainy. Every day someone would post some new hateful jingoistic nonsense about how horrible these people are and that they need to get out of 'Merica and leave it to the 'Mericans.

I try not to get involved on NextDoor because I live in a small community and I have to see these people at the ferry dock. But I got mad. And I got involved. And it got long.

So I decided to share it with you. Please feel free to share it with others who might need to hear it.

You know, I was going to let this thread go by without saying anything. It's not worth it, I said to myself. These people aren't going to listen. But y'all can't stop being hateful and I'm tired of getting notifications that someone else is being and absolute bell-end about their fellow man on NextDoor.

So buckle up.

First of all, "they" aren't illegal. They are asylum seekers. It is legal in every nation on the planet to seek asylum, and they are abiding by the law. Just like our friend with his grandfather's naturalization certificate at the top of the thread (which is from 1928, by the bloody way, predating the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 which completely overhauled the process to enter this country, specifically to make it harder for minorities because human beings will keep a rock as a pet but cannot think of other human beings as brothers unless they look *exactly* like them. And even then). THEY NEED HELP BECAUSE THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE LAW. The law forbids them to work for 6 months after entry. If they were illegal, they would just start working one of the many menial jobs that have no problem hiring underpaid immigrant labor.

Second, these people are not hurting you. In any way. I would be shocked if anyone yelling about those terrible no good very bad fellow human beings had ever met even one of them. Many of them are educated and skilled. Many of them are Francophones, making Maine a wonderful place for them to reestablish themselves, as there are still pockets of French speakers in this state. Every single study shows that immigrants and asylum seekers are a net benefit to the economy, that they get off of social services much faster than homegrown welfare recipients, that they become entrepreneurs and hard workers. And yet you hate them before they even arrive.

And if you want to talk to me about how some of them are Muslim, and might bring their naughty repressive Muslim African culture into wonderful, flawless liberal America, let me tell you about Alabama. And Georgia. And Ohio. And North Carolina. And the Supreme Court. The people who are right now actively seeking to curtail my rights to my own body, to prevent me from voting for my own equal representation, to empower the companies that may employ me over myself, are as American as the flag, fireworks, and goddamned apple pie. These are individual people with no institutional power, and you have no idea what they think or believe about anything because you don't know them. The people with institutional power are hurting us all. Right now. And I don't see any angry threads on Next Door about it.

OMG BUT MY TAXES.

I. Pay. Taxes. Too. And my taxes go to support an aging Maine population, to give them healthcare, food stamps, housing subsidies, social security, and myriad other avenues of support. Support that will almost certainly not be available to me when I am old, because the very generation receiving my tax dollars has repeatedly voted for the downsizing and existential dissolution of the programs they enjoy. Yet I still pay. I pay for you. Knowing I will get nothing in return.

But you know what really pisses me off about where my tax dollars go? It isn't that they support an aging conservative population with the free time to post endless hateful multi-exclamation point capslocked screeds on the Internet. And it goddamn well isn't that 86-150 families (god, how few human beings it takes to turn on the histrionics) who have been through the most heinous and unimaginable cruelty, violence, and persecution might settle here in this state where all the young people actually born here are fleeing at rates that would snap your neck.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to build a megayacht dock in Portland so that more uber-rich assholes have a place to park their massive pleasure boats, boats that cost more than those 86-150 families could ever need.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars are going to subsidize developers who smell fresh meat in our city so they can build more luxury condos none of us can afford (and again, the sale price of three or four of them on the West End would cover everything these families need), condos that will sit empty for all but two weeks a year so that a few families can look at the water and stuff themselves with lobster butter while complaining about live music to the point that our festivals get cancelled so they can go to bed earlier, murmuring as they drift off to a dreamland none of us can make a down payment on that Portland used to be so much better in the old days.

My tax dollars and your tax dollars and all of our tax dollars have, for eight years, gone toward blocking bills the people voted for from becoming law, fighting in the courts not to give Mainers medicare or raise our minimum wage or let us smoke in peace or have a little more choice in voting. Our money has gone to subsidizing red states that hate New England like fire. Our money has gone to making sure the megayacht-parking lobster butter bathers pay less in taxes than a barista on Munjoy Hill. And NONE of you are complaining about that.

Nor do I see any single thread looking to help the homeless vets and addicts you're all suddenly so conveniently concerned about, no matter how bad the winter gets. Pro tip: do not use veterans as strawmen when you argue that the poor deserve nothing and America is somehow full. A massive percentage of vets are immigrants themselves, and they are out there protecting your right to be a total dick on the internet.

Somehow, for some strange reason, the only time people seem to take to their keyboards to complain about where their taxes are going is when they might just end up helping someone less fortunate. When they help people more fortunate? Crickets.

This state is aging. We need a new tax base or all those senior citizens will suffer, because their services will be cut without people my age to pay for them. Young people are not moving here. They're just vacationing here. If you feel like freezing to death some idle winter without social services still yelling Don't Tread On Me, be my guest. I would prefer to live in a lively multicultural city full of art, music, food, theater, and more services being used by people who need them to survive than those who just want to pay a little less taxes and have a convenient place to park their yachts.

The hate in this thread is repulsive. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. I would imagine some of you consider yourselves Christian, even while you spit on those Christ commanded you to shelter and treat even as you would him. Nice work. There is not one of you who has not taken help from another human being at some point in your lives, even if it's only in the form of using the roads and electricity and infrastructure we all pay for collectively to make yourselves a success. Filling these people's bellies costs us so much less than filling the insatiable gullets of the vulture capitalists that have made quite the little feast of our city in the last decade. It's utterly pathetic that we must pay for the rich to harm us, but that rouses no protest, but this, THIS, these poor, desperate, hopeful people who have walked across a continent to get here, raises your rage to the breaking point.

You want to save a dollar by starving a poor man while handing over twenty to a rich one with a smile and a song.

That you would deny someone who has escaped hell on earth a blanket, a tv dinner, and a scrap of gym floor to sleep on doesn't make you a patriot. It makes you a bad person.

I said good day, sir.

Catherynne M. Valente

is a novelist; her latest book is

Mass Effect: Annihilation

.

https://boingboing.net/2019/06/18/nextdoor-is-terrible.html

[heymiss-miss]

How My Family Immigrated to the United States

Date 14 Feb 2017

I want to write about how my family (Mother and her side from Malaysia with Chinese ancestry, and just my Dad from New Zealand) immigrated to the United States. Now, I want to start off by saying that they all immigrating legally to the United States. I want to illustrate how long that process was in order to hopefully bring empathy to why others come illegally.

Depending on what country you’re from, the immigration progress can vary greatly. This is the result of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Cellar Act) which created a quota system that provides the same number of visas being issued to every country. That means larger countries such as China, India, Philippines, and Mexico will have a longer waiting period since there are more people applying for visas. I will talk about that later in this post, but that factors into why it was important to state where my family was immigrating from.

The first person in my family, my aunt, immigrated from Malaysia to study and married an American. Her siblings (including my mom) wanted to immigrate as well. But it was faster to apply as a parent to child than a sibling to sibling. A parent to child falls under 2nd preference, whereas sibling to sibling falls under 4th preference. Currently, there are 114,000 visas issues for 2nd preference plus any left over from the 1st. There are 65,000 visas issued for 4th preference, plus any leftover from 3rd. It changes the potential waiting period from 6 years to 10 years when max quota gets hit.

So getting back to my family, my aunt got my grandparents green cards so that then her siblings could receive them. My mom got her green card and then applied for my father (New Zealander) and while married they were separated for two years while waiting for his paperwork.  She had to be in the US, while he needed to stay in New Zealand.

My grandmother is still on her green card even though she’s been living in the US for 18 years because she doesn’t speak English and can’t do the citizenship test. And it’s not like she hasn’t tried or doesn’t want to learn English. She’s completely illiterate in any language since she was not allowed to go to school as a child. My cousin hasn’t been able to visit his family in the US because his visa gets denied on the grounds of the fact that he’s a young unmarried male and there’s fear of him being an overstayer.

The immigrant process can be crazy long, in some cases a ten year waiting period for an individual. For my family for each person to get their visa processed was 2-3 years. So from aunt to grandparents to Mom to Dad, low balling it at 2 years person, it took 8 years for my family to immigrant to the United States. Even though my parents and family came here legally, I don’t have an issue with illegal immigrants because I can understand their desperation to leave for a better life and not being able to wait for it. My family could wait for all the paperwork to come through. But we were not fleeing poverty or violence.

Now let’s look at some of the immigration history in the United States and look at the current system. It is important to understand these things understand how difficult it is to enter the United States and then have empathy to why some choose to enter illegally.

During the late 19th century there was major pushback against Asian Immigrants. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was pass which banned all immigration from China. We also as the Asiatic Barred zone which excluded almost all Japanese and all other Asians. The Chinese Exclusion act was repealed in 1943.

In 1924, the National Origins System gave a wave to the next stage of immigration law. This was a quota system that benefited immigration from Western European countries and limited most Eastern European and almost all Asian and African immigration.

It was then recognized that it was not fair to discriminate immigrants based on their country of origin. Fun fact, people cannot control where they are born. So I n 1965 the Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Cellar Act) was introduced. This created an equal quota for each country, meaning the same numbers of nationals would be able to obtain immigrant visas. The scale was finally balanced and for the first time, Western European countries were not favored in the immigration process. That is why Trump’s Muslim Ban is illegal. He has interfered with this act when he banned those seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen).

It works out to each country gets 7% of the American visas that are issued each other. Another way to think about it is that each country is allowed 170,000 visas. However, with the combination of preference system (e.g. family and working) plus the country limits, most countries to not hit their total. It is important to remember that this number is non-transferrable, so once the maximum number of visas are issued for that country, you then go on the waiting list. That means for countries with a larger population (and thus more applicants), the longer it will take to immigrate to the United States. These countries include China, India, the Philippines, and Mexico. For a Mexican, that waiting period can be between 4-5 years. For a Filipino that can be a 10-year waiting period.

The waiting period can be influenced if you have family-sponsorship or employment sponsorship. Family-sponsorship will be influenced based on relation to the person in the United States (parent –> child, child –> parent, sibling –> sibling) and whether that person in the US is on a green card or has citizenship. If your family member has citizenship, great news, there isn’t a restriction on that number of visa issues. It is also not limited by those that are considered ‘special immigrants.’ That requires a separate application and would include people that were translators for the US military in Iraq. Sadly, one of these translators that got a special immigrant visa was stopped by Trump’s ban. 

In regards to the employment sponsorship, it does depend on the employer how that affects your paperwork and if you need to pay. If you don’t have an employer, there are companies that will sponsor you for a fee. I had a Kiwi mate that was moving to the US to work and her fees from this company were somewhere between $500 NZD-$1000 NZD (I can’t remember the exact amount, but I remember it was a lot for someone on minimum wage).

So when it comes to the illegal immigration debate, you do need to think about the factors to why they don’t enter the country legally and to have some empathy and sympathy to that decision. It is a long waiting time. There are a lot of paper work. It can be costly to pay for the sponsorship. Also remember that when they are trying to understand the immigration paperwork and process that for most of them, English is not their first language. Also, think about the factors on why they are leaving and what is the lifestyle of their current living situation. Is there anything we can do about our policies to make it easier for immigrants to legally come to the United States? What if we could recycle the unused visas? Still keep the quota allocations to keep things fair, but at the end of the year if it is not used, why not cycle it back into the system for next year to help with the immigration waiting list for the larger countries?

We also need to think about how we treat illegal immigrants that are in the United States. They live in this country. They call it home. We shouldn’t be deporting them and breaking families. We need to find an easy way so they can come out of the shadows and be legal immigrants. When illegal immigrants work on fake or stolen social security numbers the social security payments cannot be linked it sits in a pool waiting to be collected. It is estimated that illegal immigrants pay $13 billion dollars into social security and only get $1 billion out on the benefits. Whether illegal immigrants pay income tax will depend on if they are using a false social security number or being paid under the table. But, we are still generating tax from them since they buy goods in the United States and every time they go to the till. It is estimated that if we legalize undocumented immigrants, that over a 10 year period, the GDP would receive $1.4 trillion cumulatively. There is $184 billion in tax revenue. It would also mean that these immigrations would be paid 25% more than what they currently earn and guess what, that money will be channeled back into our economy.

We have to remember that the United States is considered the nation of immigrants. Unless you are Native American, at some point, somewhere in that history, your family choose to immigrant to this country or were forced to thanks to slavery. And if you’re someone of Western European decent, you family had it a lot easier immigrating to this country than the people of my ancestry (remember for 61 years Chinese were banned from immigrating to the United States). Remember your own roots before you tell someone to 'Go back to where you came from’ or ’S/he deserves to be deported, they should have just come to this country legally.’ There is a huge privilege to be born an American. Be mindful of the hard work that goes into becoming an American.

[dellalyra]

In 1965 the Immigration and Nationality act of 1965 passed, proposed by Emanuel Cellar, representative of New York, co-sponsored by Philip Hart of Michigan and promoted by Senator Ted Kennedy. It was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. One of the provisions enacted by this act was that it bans discrimination against immigrants national origin, race and ancestry. President Donald Trump has broken the law. Actress Julianne Moore tweeted about this this morning and it needs to be drilled into the brains of Trump Supporters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

[corruption-spreads]

The Rise of the Alt Right

On August 12, 2017, Heather Heyer was killed in a terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. A man drove his car through a crowd of counter-protestors, injuring 19 and killing one. Heather was there protesting the Unite the Right rally, a white supremacist rally organized by Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer that took place on August 11 and 12. Kessler and Spencer said that the rally was to protest the removal of a confederate statue of Robert E. Lee from Lee Park, as well as to unite the various white supremacist and alt-right groups in the area. The man who drove his car through the crowd of counter-protestors later plead guilty to 29 federal crimes and is now serving life in prison. This rally, among other events in the past few years, has been a catalyst for the rise of the alt-right. The alt-right, or the alternative right, is a term that originated from Richard Spencer, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, who gained fame during the 2016 presidential campaign after democratic candidate Hillary Clinton made the claim that Donald Trump’s campaign was driven by “an emerging racist ideology known as the alt-right” (qtd. in Wood). The Anti-Defamation League describes the alt-right as “an extremely loose movement, made up of different strands of people connected to white supremacy.” This begs the question of what has led to the rise of this ideology over the past two years. The rise of the alt-right should be blamed on Donald Trump, because he continues to offer support to white supremacists and leaders of the alt-right movement, as well as supporting legislation that furthers white supremacist ideologies.

           In his third statement about the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Donald Trump boldly made the claim that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the rally. He also complained about what he called the “very, very violent...alt-left.” The use of the term alt-left here is in particular interest, due to the fact that unlike the term alt-right, the term alt-left was not coined by the group he claims it represents. Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, claimed the term alt-right, and proudly calls himself it. When Donald Trump announced he was running for president Spencer gave his full support. When Trump won the presidential election, Richard Spencer said at a rally, “hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” (qtd. in Goldstein). Hail victory is the English translation of the exclamation “Sieg Heil,” a phrase used in Nazi Germany often. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump would often claim that he didn’t know who David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was. This is demonstrably false, however, as in 2000, when he decided to end his run for candidacy, he released a statement saying “the Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep” (qtd. in Nagourney). So why is it that when questioned about Duke’s support in 2016, he claimed to not know who he was? Furthermore, in Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address, he said the phrase, “Americans are dreamers too” (qtd. in Osborne). The phrase is a clear reference to the DREAMers movement, a movement that seeks to provide aid to undocumented immigrants, as well as supporting laws improving immigration rights for non-US citizens. The phrase garnered praise from David Duke and Richard Spencer. Spencer posted the quote on Twitter with a picture attached of two white parents and their two children, and Duke said, “thank you President Trump” (qtd. in Osborne). Throughout his presidency, Trump continues to use his Twitter account, often retweeting posts from far-right and alt-right groups and users. For example, in November of 2017, Donald Trump retweeted three posts from Jayda Fransen, a leader of a group called Britain First. Britain First is a far-right anti-immigration group in the United Kingdom. The posts were three videos of “Islamic terror” in the United Kingdom. However, the acts in all three videos were discovered to have either been carried out by a non-Middle Eastern immigrant or to have not occurred in the United Kingdom at all, but rather in other Middle Eastern countries. Another example of this was early in 2019, where Donald Trump retweeted far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, a man who continues to promote debunked alt-right conspiracy theories. This includes the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, where it was claimed that democratic leaders were involved in human sex trafficking, and that the Democratic Party owned a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. that contained a child sex ring in its basement. By Donald Trump continuing to give far-right and alt-right figures a platform through his primary social media account, he is encouraging and validating their views.

           On January 11, 2018, Donald Trump asked “why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?” (qtd. in Watkins and Phillip). Donald Trump has been vocally anti-immigration through his campaign and subsequent election to office. The platform of anti-immigration has been supported by many white supremacist groups and individuals throughout history, with many arguing that closed borders are safer and protect the American identity as something sacred and exclusive. One example of this is the alt-right group Identity Evropa, one of the groups that organized the Unite the Right rally. The founder of the group, Nathan Damigo, is an Iraq war veteran, says that “America was founded as a white country – as a country for people of European heritage. And in 1965 they passed the Harts-Cellar Act and the people who passed that said, ‘this is going to change the demographic makeup of the country, this is not going to increase the amount of immigration every year,’ – all of it was bogus … even here in California [not only] are we a minority, but they are actively trying to disenfranchise us from the institutions that our ancestors created.” Time and time again, Donald Trump has signed laws and orders furthering these ideologies, one of the most prominent of these being Executive Order 13769, titled “Executive Order Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The order, signed by Donald Trump on January 27, 2017, is widely known as the Muslim ban. The order banned citizens from seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days and banned all refugees from entering the United States for 120 days. The countries banned were Venezuela, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, and North Korea, with five out of the seven countries being majority Muslim. The order was met with great support from white supremacists and neo-Nazis, with the infamous neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer being overjoyed. The site editor, Andrew Anglin, was particularly excited over this, posting, “so I’m really feeling a lot of different emotions right now. I feel ecstatic joy. I feel admiration for our GLORIOUS LEADER. I feel shame for having doubted him. I feel sadness at the loss my city has suffered. I feel rage at the people who allowed the home I knew as a child to be ravaged by these disgusting animals when they could have just as easily said ‘Somalians? Uh, yeah, no – they’re totally banned’” (qtd. in Hananoki). Through his support of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration legislation, Donald Trump has supported the ideologies of white supremacists.

           It’s easy to brush off allegations of Donald Trump supporting the alt-right, however. While Trump did say that there “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville rally, he did condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis. He stated that “racism is evil – and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans. Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America” (qtd. in Merica). While Trump is slow to disavow the ideologies behind the Unite the Right rally, he refuses to directly call out those responsible for this rise of the alt-right. The only person Trump has publicly denounced is David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. He has not taken a stance against prominent figures such as Richard Spencer or Andrew Anglin, and his White House has had numerous politicians with alt-right ties. For example, the White House Chief Strategist for the first few months of Donald Trump’s presidency was Steve Bannon, the former manager of Brietbart News. Bannon described Brietbart News as “the platform for the alt-right” (qtd. in Posner). By choosing Bannon, Trump had essentially accepted the support from the readers of Brietbart News. It’s disingenuous to believe that Trump is unaware of the support he has from the alt-right, as well as believing that he does not try to appeal to this following through his political power.

           Though it is possible that Donald Trump did not initially intend to contribute to the rise of the alt-right in the current political landscape, he has willingly and continuously supported the leaders of the movement and their ideologies. By giving alt-right figures a platform through his Twitter account with 59.6 million followers, he is to blame for many conservative young men finding their way to figures like Richard Spencer and his white supremacist ideologies. He is also to blame for the continuously growing dislike of immigrants in the United States, whether they are documented or undocumented, through his passing of legislation supporting the discrimination and banning of immigrants from Muslim countries. Because of this, it’s possible that Donald Trump is the most popular white supremacist in America.

 Works Cited

“Donald Trump Retweets Far-Right Group's Anti-Muslim Videos.” BBC News, BBC, 29 Nov. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42166663.

 Duggan, Paul. “James A. Fields Jr. Sentenced to Life in Prison in Charlottesville Car Attack.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 11 Dec. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/james-a-fields-jr-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-in-charlottesville-car-attack/2018/12/11/8b205a90-fcc8-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html.

 Goldstein, Joseph. “Alt-Right Gathering Exults in Trump Election With Nazi-Era Salute.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/alt-right-salutes-donald-trump.html.

 Hananoki, Eric. “White Nationalists Praise Trump’s Muslim Ban: ‘God Bless You,’ ‘Feel Like Crying’ With Joy.” Media Matters for America, 30 Jan. 2017, www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/30/white-nationalists-praise-trump-s-muslim-ban-god-bless-you-feel-crying-joy/215175.

 “How a Rally of White Nationalists and Supremacists at the University of Virginia Turned into a ‘Tragic, Tragic Weekend.".” The Washington Post, WP Company, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/charlottesville-timeline.

 “Identity Evropa.” Southern Poverty Law Center, www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/identity-evropa.

 Merica, Dan. “Trump Calls KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists 'Repugnant'.” CNN, Cable News Network, 14 Aug. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/08/14/politics/trump-condemns-charlottesville-attackers/index.html.

 Osborne, Samuel. “Former Head of Ku Klux Klan Praises Donald Trump's State of the Union.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 31 Jan. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/david-duke-donald-trump-state-of-the-union-2018-kkk-wihte-supremacist-americans-dreamers-a8186606.html.

 Osnos, Evan. “Donald Trump and the Ku Klux Klan: A History.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-and-the-ku-klux-klan-a-history.

 Posner, Sarah. “How Donald Trump's Campaign Chief Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists.” Mother Jones, 23 June 2017, www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news/.

 Serwer, Adam. “The President's Pursuit of White Power.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 14 Jan. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trump-embraces-white-supremacy/579745/.

 Thomsen, Jacqueline. “Trump Retweets Far-Right Activist.” TheHill, 13 Jan. 2018, www.thehill.com/homenews/administration/368940-trump-retweets-far-right-activist.

 “Timeline of the Muslim Ban.” ACLU of Washington, 26 Nov. 2018, www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

 Watkins, Eli, and Abby Phillip. “Trump Decries Immigrants from 'Shithole Countries' Coming to US.” CNN, Cable News Network, 12 Jan. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-shithole-countries-trump/index.html.

 Wood, Graeme. “Richard Spencer Was My High-School Classmate.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 12 June 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/his-kampf/524505/.

DISCLAIMER: I know there are a lot of sources cited in the works cited that I didn’t necessarily reference in this essay. Furthermore, some of the grammar is a bit choppy and there are unnecessary phrases here and there. But overall, I felt like sharing this!

This essay came from an English 112 class I took in college.

[talltalestogo]

The Pew survey revealed that Trump is more popular among white evangelicals who regularly attend church and less popular among those who do not. Why the divergence? Because many white evangelicals who attend church regularly came of age politically and spiritually in the 1980s, precisely when the Christian right was born.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, evangelicals became anxious about perceived threats to white Christian culture in America. In 1962 and 1963, the Supreme Court removed prayer and mandatory Bible reading from public schools. The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 increased diversity in the country by opening it to large numbers of non-western immigrants, who brought their diverse religious beliefs with them.

In 1971, the Supreme Court, in Green v. Connolly, stripped the tax-exempt status from institutions that discriminated in their admissions policies based on race. This affected a host of Southern Christian schools and academies, many of which saw the decision in terms of “big government” threatening their religious liberty — the liberty to discriminate based upon their reading of the Bible.

[cabiba]

-$15 trillion dollars of mortgage debt in the United States to Jewish banks 

-Jews throw money around in our politics getting what they want from our governments, including 1965 Hart-Cellar (immigration) act 

-Jewish money controls our government, entertainment, media, politicians 

-Jews run FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MTV, PBS, Viacom, Warner Bros, Paramount, DreamWorks, NY Times & Boston Globe publications 

-Jews were the top donors for both the Republicans and Democrats in 2016 

-A Jew actually owns the federal reserve of the United States of America 

-Israel knowingly attacked the USS Liberty and wanted to blame Egypt to get Americans into the 6 day war. Jewish-led investigations have tried to cover this up but there has never been proof supplied that it was indeed an accident 

-Zionist Jews worked together to cover up evidence and truth about 9-11: https://youtu.be/pLWIV0TTcbI 

-With 85% representation in the Soviet Union government, the Jews helped kill 30 million people, including 20 million Christians 

-The Soviet Union outlawed criticism of Jewish power and made religion illegal -Historically Jews have been kicked out of 109 countries 

-The Holy Bible references the fake Jews multiple times and refers to Israel as the Synagogue of Satan 

-Zionists in Israel, in our media, and in our government push for wars in the Middle East -Zionists in an office in the Pentagon were the ones to create the false flag of WMD in Iraq and ultimately sparked the invasion 

-A few of the only countries not enslaved by the worldwide Jewish banking system are Iran, North Korea and Syria, which are demonized by our Jewish media 

-Libya did not have a Jewish banking system before Gaddafi was killed. They also tried to create their own currency for their oil trade to abandon the dollar 

-Jews suck the penis of infants after circumcision (not propaganda): https://youtu.be/QIfxI2BRLQY 

-The Jewish holy books (Talmud) say that non Jews are to be the slaves of Jews

-The Jewish holy books say that gentiles (non-Jews) are animals and should be treated like cattle 

-Before the civil war 40% of Jews owned slaves and owned all but one transatlantic slave trade ship 

-Compared with whites, 0.8% owned slaves, or 8/1000 whites 

-shall I go on? Revelations 2:9

[mynicco]

This is America

Question for the lot of you.... I really want to know what everyone thinks here. I'm torn on this issue and I really want a legit dialog about this. So if you have any opinion at all or you wanna call me crazy please post below. I look forward to your inputs.

Soooooo here goes. This is a long one, indulge me...

There has been a lot of talk about immigration lately. The camps. The kids. The blame game goes around and around but no one is talking about the fact this goes so far beyond Trump, Obama or Clinton.

This is systemic, this is America.

On the Statue of Liberty it states- Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Yet since 1965, American immigration laws have not reflected that position at all. Infact going back even before the Immigration laws that JFK's Successor LBJ passed this statement is even more obviously true. But lets start here.

So in 1965 LBJ(Lyndon B. Johnson - Democrat) who assumed office after the death of JFK, passed the Hart-Cellar Act which did a lot of great things for immigration. Namely, it gave immigrant applicants the ability to apply for citizenship in a system that wasn't based on quotas'. Instead on the merit of their skills and family connections with current US citizens. This is important, because it was the first clear outline of real change in policy for immigration for who and what kind person the US was willing to publicly accept in many years. A real attempt to take race out of the equation. People were going to be judged on their merits. This decision is widely considered the biggest civil rights change in LBJ's presidency. A presidency that carried on the legacy of America's Golden boy JFK.

Why is this important?(Promise we will get there but first some more history)

The immediate effect of this was the increase in skilled workers obviously. The majority of those skilled workers were from European countries. Which was part of the reason Conservatives at the time were so welcoming to this change. There was a cultural shift going on across the midwest and west coast of the country. There was a lot of unrest and racial tension in those areas. They had seen a mass influx of Chinese(before 1882) and Mexican migrant workers during the western expansion or "Manifest Destiny". This was a hot topic race issue at the state level at the time because those areas had been dominated by Irish settlers previously nearly 40% of American citizens at that point were of Irish descent alone. Their hope was to see more European immigration of skilled workers in those areas. Returning to a "better time" when there were more jobs for citizens. This all sounds antiquated right?! Lol... But we are building a pattern here. So if you're still indulging me, I'll continue.

Before Hart-Cellar passed this issue was debated for nearly 85 years at the state and federal level with only small change... Think about how fast things change now for a second. I swear if we are still complaining about peoples bathrooms in 83 years I'm gonna just start peeing on people...

I'll continue.

In the 1880's the economic situation across the western region of America was showing some very clear signs of inequality. By today's standards people would be lighting themselves on fire in the streets. There was a massive divide happening between migrant workers that were essentially living in slave camps and even the lowest economic class of citizen. Wage inequality was at an all time high at the time. So to help the American citizens suffering the most they developed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned immigration of Chinese workers for 10 years that could not prove in they were "skilled". This was enforced by requiring they receive certification from the Chinese Government. At the time "mining" was not a skilled class. (This law was passed by Chester A. Arthur - Republican)

This law was followed by the Alien Contract Labour Law of 1885 (passed by Grover Cleveland - Democrat). It stated:

“It shall be unlawful for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation, or in any way assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or foreigners, into the United States, its Territories, or the District of Columbia, under contract or agreement, parol or special, express or implied, made previous to the importation or migration of such alien or aliens, foreigner or foreigners, to perform labor or service of any kind in the United States, its Territories, or the District of Columbia.”

A long winded way of saying its illegal to assist would be immigrant workers to migrate. Unless you are family and already a citizen. This was amended several time but some form of this law remained on the books well into the 1920's.

All of this leads to my point. Which is this.

These are just a few of the examples and there are many more of how "America First" is not a new policy. The romanticism of American exceptionalism was crafted since its inception and is both part of what makes America beautiful, but also Hideous. Its never been the home for making your dream. Its been the best option for people if they suit the needs of the system. Both parties have propagated this position since America's inception.

I've seen a lot of posts about the children suffering in cages...

I'm trying to make this example without referencing the kids. I hate the idea of using people as a currency for a viewpoint. Taking children away from their parents is horrible sure. But this is a bigger issue than some kids sitting in some cages for a few days. Cages exist even if you can't see them. This notion is foolish and a blatant manipulation of people's emotional states to persuade us away from a debate that is far more important. This is a battle of ideology where both sides are ignoring the facts. Even worse they are ignoring their own actions that lead us here.

One side wants to paint every immigrant as a villain and one side seems to want to paint every immigrant as a hard working do gooder. This isn't the case. Neither side is fully right or wrong. This issue is incredibly complex and everytime it comes up we defer to the emotional response instead of considering our history, and having a real conversation about what people want immigration to look like. The laws should be better, yes. But why are we so quick to blame the other side when every side has done wrong by someone. This isn't about us vs them or anything. This is about recognising this pattern and fixing it.

There still isn't immigration reform that works. There are still thousands of people breaking the law everyday at the expense of others. This is not the fault of any single administration and the sooner both sides realize this the sooner we can really dive into fixing the situation.

I've got a whole buncha feelings on immigration but I'm saving it for another day. Sometimes we just gotta get stuff off our chests and my gf is sleeping so enjoy, and thanks for listening... Maybe I should make a podcast or something. Have a good one. If you made it this far thanks. I've been typing this for like 45 mins I'm going to bed.... Do better.

[thefreedomspray]

how the hart-cellar act of 1965 contributed to the feminization of the united states

Gender bias within the U.S Immigration system is a flaw often overlooked. In the 1960’s especially, women and their children were disproportionately affected by the gender bias embedded in the immigration system. The 1960’s served as a turning point within U.S Immigration history in the 20th century. From the start of the century, the ratio gap narrowed steadily each decade until women outnumbered men in the 1960 census. The census reported ninety five foreign born men for every one hundred women.  For the first time in American immigration history, more females immigrated to the U.S than males. Female presence in the workforce also rose in the 1960’s, and increasing upwardly since. Unfortunately, their status as the gender majority amongst immigrants held little power.

The sociopolitical climate of the United States in the 1960’s resulted in a new policy that attempted to coincide with the ideals of civil rights advocates. Many lawmakers and advocates that pressed for immigration reform “formulated their ideas as extensions of the civil rights struggle.”  This progressive thinking birthed the Hart-Celler Act of 1965 (The Immigration and Nationality Act.) While slightly eliminating racial discrimination from the immigration process, the bias was now shifted to gender. Immigration laws/quotas now then placed a spotlight on family dynamics, fueling gender anxieties and marginalization. Conventional notions of female and male gender roles were now systematic.

As of 1965, the United States had not adhered to a steady immigration philosophy. Throughout the longevity of federal legislation on the matter, “legislation had often reflected the sentiment and mood of the country and the particular legislators in the office.” Fully effective in 1968, The Hart-Celler act abolished The National Origins Formula: a racially based quota system that had been the foundation of immigration policy since 1921. The National Origins Formula was an unaccommodating system of admittance quotas based on the prospective immigrants ethnic background/ nation of origin. The quotas were designed to reduce total immigration to the U.S, and to limit immigrants arriving from areas other than Northern/ Western Europe. 70% of all quota visas were reserved for three countries: Great Britain, Germany, and Ireland. The remaining visas were split amongst more than one hundred countries. Essentially, the system kept a cap on the incoming of “unworthy aliens.” In the wake of the civil rights movement, The National Origins Formula was often pinned as a “thinly-veiled policy of national and religious discrimination”   Over forty years later, The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 (Immigration and Nationality Act) was passed in response to the progressive and “open society” many American’s were striving for. This push for new legislation was especially advocated by supporters and activists involved in the civil rights movement.  

The newly emphasized focus on immigrant family reunification placed a spotlight on immigrant family dynamics, gender roles, and “functionality” of the socially acceptable family. The Hart-Celler Act affected the feminization of the immigration system, a visible societal shift of gender roles which were characteristically female.  The feminization of the immigration system shifted the focus of systematic racial discrimination to gender discrimination. The U.S immigration system post-Hart-Celler was now heavily influenced by gender roles that assumed a woman’s education, familial status, and place in the workforce.