America must be kept American, said President Calvin Coolidge in
1923, as a Great Depression wore on and as xenophobia
ran rampant,
American leadership found a scapegoat in immigrants,
blaming them for taking jobs,
for not assimilating into American culture
just before the bill was enacted,
this op-ed was published in the New York Times in
April of
1924. America of the melting pot comes to an end.
Then at the end of May
1920, four, 100 years ago,
President Coolidge signed the Johnson Reed Act,
or the Immigration Act of
1924. The ACT banned all immigration from Asia and instituted
very low quotas,
limiting the number of people allowed from each country,
severely limiting all other immigrants except
those from Western and northern Europe.
The impact of that bill was swift and extreme.
Almost immediately, the United States saw a sharp decline in
immigration,
which lasted for the next 40 years.
As author and Wharton professor Zeke Hernandez wrote in the
recent op-ed quote,
communities that lost immigrants because of the 1920s quotas received
significantly less investment capital from the countries where those immigrants
would have come from,
and businesses in those places today invest less abroad as
a result.
That lack of investment equals fewer jobs.
The 1924 quotas 100 years ago LED America to lose
out on thousands of foreign scientists.
As a result, native born scientists became
68% less likely to patent and companies dependent on foreign
talent suffered a multi decade decline in patenting.
The architects of the 1920s immigration restrictions claimed to be
protecting American workers,
but it actually accomplished exactly the opposite.
At the height of the Great Depression,
politicians worried that American workers were being hurt by competition
from Mexicans,
so the government forcibly repatriated
1/3 of all Mexicans living in the United States.
That effort backfired, resulting in fewer and lower paying jobs
for American workers.
100 years later, we find ourselves having a similar rhetorical
and ideological debate about immigration.
Trump and his allies are stocking anti immigrant sentiment,
using brutally dehumanizing language to describe immigrants,
pushing the idea that immigration is the reason that the
United States is a quote nation in decline.
As Hernandez points out, even many of the most progressive
among us who have a positive view of immigration often
have that positive view based on personal morals or an
ethical obligation to help those in need and to accept
the quote poor huddled masses.
End Quote. But even that compassionate point of view
gets it wrong. Supporting an increase in legal,
accessible immigration isn't the kind of thing to do for
those who are fleeing turmoil in their birth country.
Immigration actively improves American Society,
and there is now tons of data to back that
up,
Hernandez writes. Quote, immigrants foster investment,
create jobs, make us more innovative,
fill our public coffers, reduce crime,
and successfully integrate culturally. Yes,
people want to immigrate to our country because of the
possibility of a better life,
of economic prosperity, of social safety,
of socio political stability. But we shouldn't just tolerate the
idea of immigration as an act of humanistic altruism.
We should embrace immigration as vital to our country's economic
health,
as integral to our position as a global leader in
innovation,
as necessary for us to continue on as a healthy
and prosperous country.
Immigration and what we should do to change our current
broken system is at the very front and center of
the upcoming presidential election.
When we come back, I'll dive deeper into why this
election will be so pivotal for both immigration and the
economic health of our country.