Former President Trump has developed a robust and extreme immigration policy, which is one of the cornerstones of his campaign.
He has made, and continues to make, sweeping statements that define all immigrants as criminals or people who will take jobs from American citizens.
Trump's statements include: "No, they're not humans, they're not humans, they're animals," to "they are poisoning the blood of our country.”
He has raised the prospect of deportation camps, using National Guard troops to deport immigrants and ending the long-established birthright policy of children who are born in America automatically becoming US citizens.
All Irish Americans - Republican, Democrat, and Independent - should oppose this policy given our own history of immigration.
The Irish citizens who arrived in the 1840s and 1850s endured the same negative attacks from the Know Nothing Party. Two Catholic Churches, Saint Michael’s and Saint Augustine’s, were burned down in Philadelphia in 1844. There were anti-immigrant riots in numerous American cities, and the Know Nothing Party (aka the American Party) took control of the Massachusetts state legislature in 1854, polled 40% in Pennsylvania, and elected a Mayor in Chicago.
Nativism arose again in the 1920s with the emergence of the KKK. As Timothy Egan noted in his recent book, "A Fever in the Heartland," the KKK came to South Bend, Indiana in 1924 to attack Notre Dame, only to be routed by the students. Thus, the name “Fighting Irish.”
Yet in the same year, Egan writes that the KKK's influence led Congress to pass "The National Origins Act of 1924, a Klan-blessed master design for the future of America, passed in the House by an overwhelming margin before sailing through the Senate with only six dissenting votes."
This race-based law barred immigration from Asia, and established a rigid quota system on Eastern and Southern Europeans establishing a consular control system that defined our nation’s immigration policy for decades to come.
The annual quota for the Irish Free State was set at 17,853, which was a very high number compared to other nations. Two years later, in 1926, the KKK, numbering 30,000 strong, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., attacking Catholic emigrants and Black citizens.
This was the same year that my mother, Anne Bridget McNally, immigrated to New York City at the age of seventeen from a small village in Co Tyrone called Six Mile Cross. Luckily for my mother, the quota system for Great Britain and Northern Ireland was the most expansive of all, allowing 65,721 emigrants to arrive annually. She had the added advantage of being white. The majority of nations were limited to a quota of just 100.
Retrieved from ImmigrationHistory.org/item/1924-immigration-act-johnson-reed-act/
The nativism of the 1840s and 1920s is still part of the American experience in 2024, and it is central to Trump's reelection strategy.
Given our history, Irish America should speak out and be clear in opposing Trump's extreme immigration policy. Irish America worked its way up from the bottom and became the bedrock of the American middle class - the firefighters, the policemen, the teachers, the postal workers, and the union leaders. Now, Irish America is part of the Establishment.
Nevertheless, we should not be quiet and acquiesce to an extreme immigration policy given our history. We also have the capacity to be active in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
The 119th Congress and the next President will have to take up this issue, and now is the time for Irish America to actively build coalitions to impact the elections in November.
Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut was the chief Democratic negotiator who forged the bipartisan Immigration Act that Donald Trump purposely killed by weighing in from the campaign trail. This piece of legislation is tough, but fair and balanced. It hopefully will serve as the basis for any new legislation in 2025.
Now is the time for Senator Murphy and other Congressional leaders like Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Rep. Richie Neal (D-MA), Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and newly elected Rep. Tim Kennedy (D-NY) to raise their voices in protest against Donald Trump’s extreme immigration policy. Hopefully they won’t be alone.
*Kevin J Sullivan spent 14 years working on Capitol Hill and eight years in the Clinton Administration. He is the co-founder of VotingRights.ie.
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