Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / American Immigration - The Story You Likely Do Not Know
Transcript
- 0:08There we go. It's third hour now in our twenty third year The Morning
- 0:13Show with Preston Scott, Grant Allen over there, I'm here and I am
- 0:17joined by doctor Ed Moore. Time for a little more history. Hello,
- 0:20sir, how are you? I'm good. I think I've been doing this
- 0:23for around nineteen years of that twenty was it three years in or was it
- 0:28I think it was four or five because it was Eric Eggers that introduced us.
- 0:32Yeah, it was around two thousand and five. That might have been
- 0:36at the beginning of the Egger's reign. Yeah, I know it was in
- 0:42this studio. It was when we moved in here and here. Yeah,
- 0:45yeah, so I'm pretty sure it would have been two thousand and five or
- 0:48six. So anyway, we welcome you once again. Put that on my
- 0:53wall somewhere, you know. So we have been talking about pioneers and explorers
- 1:00of this country and it kind of it's it's an untold part of that whole
- 1:04story because America is is a land of immigrants. Yeah, but adopting a
- 1:12common set of values, at least we used to sort of kind of do
- 1:15that. We always fooled ourselves into believing that, Yes, yeah, what
- 1:23caused you to want to take this route? This day, I was watching
- 1:26one of the news shows and I don't do that talking. You know,
- 1:30they were talking about immigration. I thought, you know, one of the
- 1:33things we need to take a pause in how we acquired all the lands to
- 1:38create the United States and think about where all the people came from. And
- 1:42you know, essentially, I mean everybody at some point in time has a
- 1:48history of an ancestor absolutely from somewhere else. Right, even the original colonials,
- 1:56they were, you know, disparate, more disparate than most people give
- 2:00them credit for being. Usually they think of, oh, they were all
- 2:04English Durst, you know, No, they weren't. No, they were
- 2:07sort of Irish Scott. I mean, there was northern Europe predominantly, but
- 2:14kind of from all over and a little bit out of the east. You
- 2:15know, Germans were here. And then of course when the Brits used Hessian
- 2:21soldiers in the Revolution, well they didn't all go home. They stayed here,
- 2:27and then they attracted their relatives to come here. So over the time,
- 2:30it's immigration has been a good part of our history. And you always
- 2:37hear people go, well, you know, they all used to go through
- 2:40Ellis Island, and the reality on that is, no, they didn't.
- 2:44That didn't really start until the eighteen nineties. It was in an Irish lady
- 2:49young lady Anymore was the first one to sign the book at Ellis Island,
- 2:53relative of yours. No, I don't think so now, but eighteen ninety
- 2:59one when that started, I believe January of ninety one when they actually started
- 3:04trying to track at least in New York Harbor. But people would still were
- 3:07coming in through Boston or Philadelphia, wherever they could get off a boat on
- 3:12the rivers and come into America or come down from Canada, which was a
- 3:16very common thing. When did the term legal immigrant or I mean, when
- 3:23did that all begin? When was immigration into this country a process of legality
- 3:28from the very beginning. Actually, they were trying to control on it the
- 3:32Constitution under Article two, Section eight. It doesn't really give that power to
- 3:38Washington. One of the things that I really encouraged people to read on this
- 3:43history because it's really fascinating the first fifty to years or so states controlled with
- 3:53acquiescence from the federal government. Because it's one of those powers that has been
- 3:59given into Congress by interpretation by Supreme courts over the years, they didn't.
- 4:06But in the lifetime of the Founders, because the Founders span of life really
- 4:12ran through the thirty years. Yeah, they started getting concerned about immigration in
- 4:16the seventeen nineties more so than any other time, as our governance started.
- 4:23Yeah, you know, you had the Alien and Sedition Acts in seventeen ninety
- 4:27eight, I think, and one of which there was four acts, and
- 4:30one of which the Alien Enemies Act, is still in place today and still
- 4:36used today, which is kind of interesting. The other three were felled into
- 4:41disfavor, particularly the Sedition Act as being unconstitutional, but the Alien Enemies Act
- 4:47is still kind of in place today, and presidents over time have used that.
- 4:50When they in turned the Japanese that World War Two, they were using
- 4:57an act pass in seventeen ninety eight to give the federal government authority to do
- 5:01that. So, you know, the more things change, the more they
- 5:05say the same. I've said that to you before. When you go through
- 5:10two hundred plus years of history, they dealt with the same issues we are
- 5:14dealing with today. And after the break, we'll talk about Mexico and how
- 5:18that came about. We're talking immigration through history looking at a very common topic,
- 5:31a hot topic, a troublesome topic, but through the lens of history.
- 5:38Yeah. The Cato Institute actually has a great study online if people want
- 5:43to read it, on the history of immigration in America. My view on
- 5:46it. The more I look at it, I realized that it's been convenient
- 5:51not to solve and really get a handle right up to today. It's convenient
- 5:59not to solve various reasons. You think about World War One, world War
- 6:03Two, particularly like World War One, from say eighteen ninety to nineteen thirty,
- 6:10huge waves of immigrants came to America, and they still the Irish were
- 6:14coming in, but then it switched over and it was the Germans and the
- 6:16Italians and people fleeing evolving fascist type governments were coming here and they would settle.
- 6:25If you look at settlement in America, it's a whole different story.
- 6:28Even the Germans came here, a lot of them went to the Midwest and
- 6:30the Upper Midwest. They came from northern Europe. They were up and you're
- 6:35part of the world up in Minnesota and those areas, and once people settled,
- 6:41their families would come. US policy on immigration over the years change emphasis
- 6:46changed. Initially it was worker oriented, we need certain kinds of people.
- 6:53Then they moved over to family. If you had a person here that you
- 6:58were related to, you'd moved to the front of the line to be able
- 7:00to come over here. Spouses, children, and parents. That would change
- 7:03a lot. You know, there's three ways to become a citizen in the
- 7:08United States in statute, and one is by the soil jose lee that you
- 7:17were born here. If you're born here, and there's probably only thirty seven
- 7:21and thirty eight countries in the world that grant you citizenship by birth if you
- 7:28happen to be born here, even if your parents are foreign, you're a
- 7:30US citizen. There's by blood if you travel overseas and your spouse is pregnant
- 7:38and has a baby in Rome, there's still a US citizen because you are
- 7:43a US citizen. And then there's by the pledge of Allegiance where you swear
- 7:46allegiance of the country, which is the normal naturalization process. But the whole
- 7:54history of it is that who was coming here. Great Britain used immigration to
- 7:59get rid of they called it transportation. Was the actual term use were undesirables,
- 8:05criminals, people that you really don't want around in your country anymore.
- 8:11Send them to the colonies, or send them to Australia, which was a
- 8:15criminal thing. Georgia was basically a penal colony in the early days and all
- 8:20those people were used as farmly. If you transpose that to the modern era
- 8:28now and look what's occurring with people coming across our border. What do you
- 8:31think a lot of those countries are doing with their undesirables When you hear stories
- 8:37of Venezuela, Yeah, Venezuela immediately came to mind. Yeah, emptying their
- 8:43prisons, send them to America. That's been done before. Nothing new under
- 8:48the sun. That's the difference being we have the ability to curtail it if
- 8:52we chose to, and we knew who was coming. And there's a huge
- 8:56difference to sure. Once you start or stop paying attention to who is coming
- 9:03across your border, then you've lost control. And that's that's pretty much where
- 9:07we are today. And that's how it was kind of early. I mean,
- 9:11the ships came in, you got off the boat, and you know,
- 9:13you walked ashore and there was Granny over there or whatever, and you
- 9:16had a place to live, you know, and even if she was a
- 9:20criminal from the other part of the world, it didn't matter. And a
- 9:22lot of those criminals were debtors, you know. Sure, they just couldn't
- 9:26pay their bills, so the chiefs got to get them out here, right.
- 9:30My family came over in a number of different ways. Indentured servitude was
- 9:35a common way back in the sixteen hundreds and seventeen hundreds. That's how my
- 9:41headbright in America came here. As an indentured servant. You came in,
- 9:46people would pay your bail and pay your way over, and you had to
- 9:50work for them for a period of years. You know, it's frightening,
- 9:52folks. He hasn't even looked at his notes. Doctor edmore with us more
- 9:58to come on the morning show, prest Scott. Oh, we just had
- 10:03a little funny there, Doctor d Moore with us. When we talk about
- 10:07immigration, it's almost impossible to say the word. And as much as we're
- 10:13trying to focus on the history of it, everyone's mind goes to the southern
- 10:18border and what's happening, right, yeah, yeah, And the history is
- 10:22different, I mean different phases of our history. We had mostly North and
- 10:28Western Europeans coming. There was a period where the Chinese were all coming over
- 10:33to California to do the menial work, and they needed the work. My
- 10:39view is the US government has never really wanted to solve the immigration crisis or
- 10:46issue it's been inc Why because it's been a convenient tool to use in times
- 10:50of need. Okay, World War one, world War two, when all
- 10:54the young Americans were all fighting somewhere. They needed cheap labor. They needed
- 11:00people to work the farms and work the factories and do that kind of work.
- 11:03Okay, so they brought people in. One of them. Did we
- 11:07bring people in? Did we just well, cottage industries would create it,
- 11:11okay. And now we've got the you know, the different groups down in
- 11:16Mexico that are getting paid to bring them in. Uh me and the cartels,
- 11:22Yeah, yeah, those guys, and then the NGOs that also get
- 11:26paid absolutely help them when they come in. So, you know, it
- 11:30becomes industry and then that and then what happens is you create a culture of
- 11:35groups out there advocating for more immigration and more money funding more. Was there
- 11:41a pivot pointed in in in the US as it relates to the southern border.
- 11:46Uh yeah, Actually, we created a program called the Brassero program that
- 11:50to get farm workers to come in and they were up two million, four
- 11:54million a year coming in through this brosero where they would they would have papers,
- 12:01they were supposed to be coming in to do certain work, generally farm
- 12:05work. This World War two emphasis here, and during the Brasserra program it
- 12:11I think it was around nineteen forty seven that they shut it off. And
- 12:16when they shut it off, government generally doesn't think ahead. Here, they
- 12:22create a program and a pipeline and things for people to start coming and thinking,
- 12:26oh, there's an opportunity I can make some money, send some money
- 12:28home. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that, and
- 12:31then you just shut it off. Well, what happened right after they shut
- 12:35it off was illegal immigration went through the roof because they were used to coming.
- 12:41Businesses were used to being able to hire them cheap labor, so they
- 12:45would keep hiring them even though they were illegal because there really wasn't much enforcement
- 12:48going on. Feds figured it out, and you're going to love this one.
- 12:52They figured it out, my eyes, and they went, oh,
- 12:56we were capturing a million two million a year and sending them back, sending
- 13:00them back, and then Finally somebody somewhere went, oh, you know what,
- 13:03we can restart a different Brassero program, but we've got to get rid
- 13:07of these illegals. What they would They had a program they actually called the
- 13:11wetback program, I remember, and they would take them back down to the
- 13:16border and say, okay, go back across the bridge. Put one foot
- 13:20back in Mexico. You're illegal. We're kicking you out. Come back across
- 13:24the bridge. We'll give you papers. You're back in the Brasero. You're
- 13:28legal. Now you can go to work. Federal government was doing that.
- 13:31I mean, so we've been a mess since day one in handling these kinds
- 13:37of issues. You're talking about millions of people coming this way. Now,
- 13:39we got people coming across by the millions. We have no idea who's coming
- 13:45really, what their intent purpose is being here. Well, we know the
- 13:50intent and purpose of some of some. Yeah, and and they're still amongst
- 13:54all of those. And this is when you get into there's people that have
- 13:58always been coming searching for something better or the land of opportunity, where a
- 14:03land where government's not supposed to strangle you and cut things off. That's what
- 14:09attracts people here most people here, the people that come here that come from
- 14:13true oppressive areas and regimes, they come and they fight vociferously and strenuously for
- 14:22the ideals that make America America, or and pulling shows out as well right
- 14:28now. And when you look at the Hispanic Americans when they try to pull
- 14:33them independently, increasingly they're moving towards conservatives. Trump's numbers with them has gone
- 14:39through the roof, of course, and it's because the ones that are here
- 14:43legally or maybe their head right was illegal initially, but over the years they've
- 14:50had families and children. They want opportunity, and that's why we're here.
- 14:56And that's why it's a difficult issue to settle your way through, because how
- 15:00do you sort out the people who came here with a need or maybe had
- 15:05a problem back home. Well, I know what I would do. I'd
- 15:07take all the Berkeley grads and professors on the left coast and I'd kick them
- 15:11out of the country and make all the room in the world for the migrants
- 15:15who want to be here legally. That'd be interesting. Then a migrant professor,
- 15:20Hey, you could do that. It couldn't be worse than some of
- 15:24these people out there that's true as always, thank you great to be here,
- 15:28doctor Ed Moore. With US Immigration, I think I would title this
- 15:31the more Things Change, the more things stay the same. As he said
- 15:35earlier, it's yeah more with two o's thank you, Thank you, Ed,
- 15:41doctor Ed Moore in the Morning Show with Preston Scott