Weekend Talkshows Past - American Forum Of The Air: The McCarran/Walter Immigration Bill - 1952
By Gordonskene Sunday Nov 22, 2009 7:00pm
("Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your . . . .never mind")
Since debate on the issue of our current Immigration laws should be heating up soon, this may be jumping the gun. But it's never too early to start getting some historic perspective on issues. So this post is about the debate over the McCarran/Walter Immigration Bill of 1952.
The program, American Forum Of The Air, hosted a debate on the bill with Senator Herbert Lehman (D-New York) and Congressman J. Frank Wilson (D-Texas)on May 17, 1953.
Sen. Herbert Lehman: “Aliens already in this country can be apprehended and placed in custody. In some cases they can be deported without even the benefit of a hearing. Mister Blair, the McCarran -Walter Act took over all the worst features of all the immigration laws which have been enacted over the last thirty or forty years. But it added many new provisions that were equally bad and combined the whole structure into a legal code which is anti-humanitarian, anti-foreign and, in the profoundest meaning of the word Un-American. It is a complex law and very difficult to summarize in all of its details. But if we are to keep faith with our American traditions, this law, in my opinion must be completely revised and rewritten.”
Then, as now the subject of our Immigration Laws was the object of much heated debate. In the 1950s, with the Red Scare in full bloom, the fear was mass migration of Communist subversives and assassins - however, then as now there was the racial/ethnic overtone which seems to be really what the debate is always about.
Some of it isn't so subtle.
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Were Mexicans as Communist then as they are Conservative now?
those evil Spanish .
Homeland security , American Indans , ( picture Chief Joseph , Wolf Robe , Red Cloud , Sitting bull , Geronimo and many more )fighting Terrorisim since 1492 .
Hitlers scientists and industrial engineers had full employment with the U.S. Government.
Not many years ago we celebrated the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, who bears that motto: "Give me your tired, You poor, etc." and I remember all the patriotism and flag waving and grandstanding that went on. I just wonder how many of thos flag wavers are now part of the anti-immigration movement. For some people, principles are great, when they're convenient.
. . the young, the retired, etc.
The statue was also a gift from France...that country that some Americans just love to hate. Not only short memories...an incredible amount of ignorance.
This is inbred White Trailer Trash, you know the kind hiphiphoray for America, Wave that flag boy, get a photo op with a soldier (make sure he is WHITE and Phony ass christian).
This was befor the the Worst president in history was APPOINTED by the US Supreme Court.
Now America is White trailer Trash Hate and Fear Monger Christian White Trailer Trash that is afraid of its own shadow. Real low Life Scum bags, led by the like of the KKK< Nazissession, mccconnell vitters all white trash and there are alote more.
is that where if you dont like the channel , you look in your other neighbors window ? .
APPOINTED by Poppi Bush's appointed US Supreme Court.
child and teenybopper was segregated from Mexicans and Mexican-Americans back in the 1940's, including my grandparents, great-grandparents, and my mother. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans had to sit in a part of the theater with a bad view, away from the whites.
But more often than not, they went to the Mexican cine on the other side of town that showed the popular Spanish-language movies of the time.
It's a weird experience walking past the theater, which closed at least a year ago. And it reminds me still have quite a way to go.
Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same, BUT .....
It was only about a decade before this that Orson Wells put that radio show on (at Halloween, no less!) where it had aliens (the flying saucer kind) invading America. Numerous people committed suicide by jumping off buildings, to say nothing of the many others who had heart attacks and just hid under their beds.
We laugh at this now -- thinking, "How old fashioned! No one would fall for that now!" But they do. No, they wouldn't be suckered by War of the Worlds, but they sure are suckered by the same old lies from politicians. Or, maybe they are just butt-assed selfish. If something sounds like it could threaten THEM, they believe it. Dummies.
White's only... White is only what? I don't get it.
guess teabaggers didn't create illiteracy (which is ironic since they think everyone should speak english - a language which they haven't mastered.
Not only that but many Spanish are white, from the time of the Visigoths the germanic tribe that lived in Spain for centuries.
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