Vice President Joe Biden apparently knows very little about the history of U. S. immigration laws:
Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that some of his ancestors came to the United States illegally and said it’s fruitless to compare the immigration system of the 1800s to today’s.
“My great-great grandparents came escaping the famine and they didn’t all come here legally,†Biden said in response to a questioner who said her family came to the country legally from Ireland in the 1800s. “They didn’t all come legally. And the existence of the system isn’t all truncated like it is now. I’d check your ancestry to make sure that they did come legally if that’s a concern to you.â€
Hmm. The first law limiting immigration to the United States was enacted in 1875 and that didn’t have any effect on the Famine Irish who emigrated to the U. S. between 1845 and 1852 when there were no laws limiting immigration into the United States.
I see only two possibilities here. Either he means “they would have been illegal under current law” which is a meaningless noise or he doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. I vote for Door #2.
He may have a point. Individual states might have immigration restrictions prior to the Civil War. Illinois banned Negros from coming to the state to reside. I think California had a special tax on Chinese immigration. Massachusetts banned Irish paupers from immigrating to the state:
“Since the 18th century, coastal states adopted policies for preventing the landing of destitute passengers and foreign paupers. While New York and Massachusetts were most successful in institutionalizing immigrant exclusion (denial of admission), the Bay State went further by implementing policies for deporting immigrant paupers already in the state. These state policies laid the foundations for federal immigration law that developed from the late 19th century onward.
As important as the succession of law from state to federal levels was how state officials enforced immigration control. In Massachusetts, for example, officials made little distinction between noncitizens and naturalized citizens in deporting Irish immigrant paupers. Immigrants were also deported without necessary court warrants, thus illegally. In criticizing the manner of removal in the state, a Boston newspaper declared in 1855 that humans were being sent from Massachusetts to the other side of the Atlantic with less formality and documentation than “the sending of a tub of butter, or a barrel of apples, from Fitchburg to Boston.†”
Link
Yes, that is a third possibility but I think you’re giving him too much credit. The greatest part of immigration to the United States was through three ports: New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. I’m betting that a) Biden doesn’t know what the state laws in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, or Louisiana were in 1850 and b) he doesn’t know which port his Irish ancestors disembarked at.
I happen to know that my Irish ancestors disembarked in Philadelphia, my German ancestors disembarked in New York, and my Swiss ancestors disembarked in New Orleans. But it wasn’t easy to discover any of that.
Plus, the context of the remark was federal law.
Speaking of ignorance………
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/12/12/flashback-1974-ncar-blamed-dramatic-climate-anomalies-on-growing-arctic-ice-called-global-cooling-the-new-norm-2013-warmists-blame-climate-disasters-on-melting-arctic-ice/
Que Michael, the children’s book author, to give us another lecture on, ahem, “science.” Oh, and steve professed ignorance of the global cooling scare of the 70’s. Just never heard of it………
Anti-capitalism and taxes. That’s all there is to it people…….
@Dave, I wouldn’t doubt that Biden wasn’t familiar with that background. From my link: “immigration policy before Ellis Island and Angel Island is not so well known, even to American historians.” That’s partly because antebellum state law is often difficult to identify, let alone understand.
(I know about Massachusetts deportation policy mainly because I’ve read it juxtaposed against its treatment of fugitive slaves. Pretty much the same people that were deporting an Irish husband married to an “American” wife, were using legalistic technicalities and jury nullification to protect fugitive slaves from being returned to their masters)
@Drew
If you are interested, the electric vehicle discussion continues.
My ancestors arrived in the 1650’s, so I’m grandfathered in.
I suspect he is repeating Irish lore that they were not welcome in much of the US when they arrived.
Steve
“Oh, and steve professed ignorance of the global cooling scare of the 70′s. Just never heard of it………”
Nope. I pointed out that there was no global cooling scare in the science world. More papers were warning about warming* than cooling even then, but some pop science writers seized upon the issue and wrote about it. Scientists studying the climate were not promoting cooling or warming at the time.
*Most of the journals were actually writing about the need for better research and better methods to measure temperatures, especially at high altitudes.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/
Steve