More Misinformation from the Media:
The words on the plaque are from a sonnet written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 to help raise money for the American contribution to the monument. Americans built the base. . . . American embraced the sentiments of that poem, and yet Americans mistreated generations of immigrants. The question of who will be accepted as American is a longstanding one. . . . In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to keep Chinese laborers out of the [United States]. . . . In 1965, along with other civil rights legislation, the government abolished earlier restrictions based on national origin. . . .
Nations want to control their borders and expect that people will abide by that law. That expectation has more moral weight when the laws are built on a just foundation. Our track record is not good. – Beyond Dreamers, the U.S. Needs a Moral Immigration Policy, The Seattle Times, Jerry Large, 9/7/17 [Link]
Fact Check: Immigration advocates always urge us to base immigration policy on the poetic sentiments of Emma Lazarus. Certainly there is nothing wrong with poetry, but sentiments without practicality guarantee bad policy. And this is precisely why we have the dysfunctional immigration policy we have today. With legal immigration now running at the highest sustained level in our history (more than one million a year), we face diversity which threatens unity, stress on our environment and resources, and economic disadvantages for American workers.
Nevertheless, many immigration advocates get so high from sniffing sentiments that they actually imagine that their lack of practical concern is a moral virtue. Evidently that is the case with the writer above. In his mind, it was immoral for the United States to show preference or lack of preference for any group of potential immigrants.
One example he cited was the Chinese Exclusion Act. Its purpose was to protect American workers on the West Coast from inundation by low-wage Chinese labor. What was so horrible about a policy that upheld the interests of Americans? Shouldn’t their well-being be the primary concern of the American government?
Actually, for a lot of immigrant advocates, the answer is no. In their rarified version of “morality” America comes in second to global vision. Notice that his writer refers to the 1965 immigration law as “civil rights” legislation. The implication is that foreigners should have rights to come to the United States. By giving immigrants priority to bring in their relatives, that legislation gave them significant authority over admission to the U.S.
But civil rights, properly defined, are the rights of citizens. And if they truly have a country, one based on democratic principles, they have the right and duty, for the benefit of their country, to put any restrictions they like on immigration. Many immigration advocates disagree, not only because they are impractical, but also because—with their global orientation—they are not patriotic.