We Need Another 1924 Law

The Quote Below—More Misinformation from the Media

“Albert Johnson and David Reed were not on the list of public figures Donald Trump wanted to immortalize in the National Garden of American Heroes he proposed during the waning months of his presidency.

“But his campaign promises suggest that if elected again, he might try to revive the legacy of the two Republican members of Congress who co-authored the landmark Immigration Act of 1924, signed into law 100 years ago Friday.

“Driven by the notion that America was being drowned by a flood of newcomers from Southern and Eastern Europe, the bill – known as the Johnson-Reed Act – which President Calvin Coolidge signed into law on May 24, 1924, established national origin quotas as the basis of American immigration policy. . . .

“On the campaign trail, Trump has implied that America is receiving the wrong kinds of immigrants. “These are people coming in from prisons and jails,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee griped at a fundraiser last month. He added: ‘They’re coming from unbelievable places and countries, countries that are a disaster.’ As he has in the past, he also bemoaned the lack of immigrants from ‘nice countries’ like “Denmark or Switzerland or Norway.”

“Meanwhile, Trump has promised to revive and expand the ban he instituted as president on immigrants from some majority-Muslim countries, while beginning “ideological screening” of all arrivals. . . .

“Johnson and Reed were in a triumphant mood on the eve of their bill’s enactment. ‘America of the melting pot will no longer be necessary,’ Reed [stated]. He remarked on the new law’s impact: ‘’It will mean a more homogenous nation, more self-reliant, more independent and more closely knit by common properties and common faith.’ . . .

“But there were less intended consequences, too, including on U.S. foreign relations. Although Reed insisted there was nothing personal about the act’s exclusion of Japanese people, the Japanese government took strong exception, leading to an increase in tensions between the two countries. . . . The road to Pearl Harbor was laid. . . .

“But with anti-immigration sentiment on the rise and quotas once again on the table, it’s clear that a century after its enactment, the ghost of Johnson-Reed isn’t completely gone.” – 100 Years after Immigration Law Shut Down America’s Doors, Its Legacy Revives, Gordon Sanders, Washington Post, 5/26/24 [Link]

Fact Check of Above Quote: The thrust of this article is that the 1924 immigration act was a terrible law, the like of which Donald Trump will try to revive if elected president. The truth is that the 1924 legislation was highly beneficial to our country. Before its enactment, increasing diversity threatened our national unity, as growing numbers of immigrants lived in impoverished ethnic ghettos. The law wisely diffused this situation by lowering immigration levels and selecting immigrants so that the ethnic and cultural balance of the country remained stable. These were not policies of “prejudice” and “bigotry,” as mass immigration advocates allege, but simple common-sense measures to promote assimilation and social harmony. As Sen. Reed stated, the goal was a country “more closely knit by common properties and common faith.”

During the decades that followed passage of the law, millions of immigrants and descendants of immigrants rose from poverty into the middle-class mainstream of America. The wages of natives and immigrants alike were no long suppressed by mass immigration. Contrary to the claim that we need mass immigration to prosper, America’s economy became the world’s mightiest as immigration subsided. That might and our national unity brought us victory during World War II. Our experience after 1924 also refutes the claim that we need immigration to have innovation. Between 1924 and the resumption of mass immigration around 1970, we became the most innovative country on the planet, as we advanced from propeller-driven biplanes to moon rockets.

The author of this article. Gordon Sanders, seems oblivious to this history which followed the 1924 law. Instead, he espouses the absurd narrative that U.S. restriction of Japanese immigration led to Pearl Harbor. Any historian knows that the conflict between the U.S. and Japan was vastly more complex than that. Anyway, it seems a stretch to claim that Japan was so deeply offended by our immigration restriction when they have never allowed significant immigration themselves.

Sanders fears that “the ghost of Johnson-Reed isn’t completely gone.” May that spirit continue to haunt him. Nothing could benefit our country more today than an updated version of immigration reform we enjoyed one hundred years ago.

 

 

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