The Jewish World archives are the proverbial treasure trove for a history buff. If you would like to look back on Minnesota Jewish history, you only need to set your web browser to our website, AJWNEWS.com, and click on the tab near the top of the page: AJW DIGITAL ARCHIVES. There you will find digitized copies of the American Jewish World, from 1915-2007.
Some years ago, while perusing old AJW issues, I found an article of topical relevance. It was on the subject of U.S. immigration laws and reported on an unusual meeting in Minneapolis.
The following is from my editorial in the Jewish World’s issue of Jan. 25, 2019:
“The United States is built upon the principles and ideals of equality, justice and tolerance. It is one of the great countries of the world, and it owes its progress and greatness largely to the immigrant,” declared Judge Hugo Pam, of the Superior Court of Cook County, Ill.
Speaking at a meeting on immigration in the Minneapolis courthouse, Judge Pam added, “America cannot at this stage surround itself with a wall to keep out the very elements which have built this country and made for its greatness. It cannot continue to be one of the great countries of the world if it pursues such a course.”
Of course, immigration and a border wall are topics of the moment. As most readers know, President Trump has shut down much of the federal government over his demand that Congress appropriate $5.7 billion for a wall (or steel-slat barrier) on the southern border.
You might be surprised to learn that the remarks by Judge Pam came at a meeting held in 1924. An article titled “The Immigration Protest Meeting” appeared in the Jewish World’s March 7, 1924, edition. In addition to Judge Pam, speakers representing “the Poles, Italians, Russians, Greeks, Jews and Ukrainians addressed the meeting.”
The Minneapolis meeting was called to protest the “proposed Johnson immigration bill,” which this paper, in a news story with a viewpoint, called “the most brazenly un-American piece of legislation ever introduced in the halls of Congress.”
My 2019 editorial pointed out that The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as The Johnson-Reed Act) “limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia,” according to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State.
As we approach the 2024 national elections, many of us are dreading the possibility of another Trump victory in the Electoral College. It could signal an imminent change from our democratic republican form of government to an autocracy along the lines of countries like Hungary.
In his single term as president, Trump proved to be too lazy and stupid to fashion an effective authoritarian regime; however, a second Trump occupation of the Oval Office could be different and deleterious to our remaining rights under the U.S. Constitution. Through his various attempts to monkey-wrench our electoral system, including inciting the MAGA mob to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump has shown himself to be an antagonist of democracy.
Of late, he portrays himself as some kind of martyr to his right-wing faction of followers, while he’s on trial in four separate cases and facing 91 serious felony counts, including violations of the Espionage Act related to his retention of classified national security documents at his Florida resort.
In the interest of harm reduction, protecting the most vulnerable people in this country, Trump, who appears to be on course to win the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, must be dealt a crushing defeat at the polls on Nov. 5.
As the presidential primary season rolls on, Trump continues to travel the country and bellow about his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
RSBN, a pro-Trump propaganda outlet based in Alabama, recently reported: “President Donald Trump has a plan to deport millions of unvetted illegal migrants who have poured across the border under the listless leadership of Joe Biden’s administration. In a prospective 2025 presidency, Trump would ‘immediately’ begin deporting illegal entrants by utilizing a strategy that is similar to what the late President Dwight Eisenhower enacted in the 1950s — but with noted improvements.”
The RSBN report continued: “During an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump explained, ‘People don’t know that Dwight Eisenhower was a pretty tough president — I never thought of him as that but … he was a big de-porter (sic), and he would deport tremendous numbers of people, and they’d bring them just to the other side of the border and they’d come back.'”
Trump added that it was only when the migrants were dropped off thousands of miles away that they “didn’t come back.”
If the Eisenhower-era deportation plan does not immediately ring a bell, it was dubbed “Operation Wetback” and was in place from 1953-1954.
The Immigration History website explains: “Not subject to general immigration restrictions until 1965, Mexicans crossed into the United States at rates of about a million per year in the 1950s. This migration was largely unregulated and southwest agricultural interests depended on Mexican labor; however, national concerns regarding employment for returning soldiers and uncontrolled migration across the southern border inspired the Immigration Bureau to crack down on Mexican immigrants in the United States. Even as the bracero program continued to recruit temporary Mexican workers, the Immigration Bureau and Border Patrol led these military-style round ups, claiming to have deported one million Mexicans. Among those deported were included many U.S. citizens of Mexican descent.” (The Spanish word bracero refers to “a laborer who works with his arms.”)
The return of Trump also could mark the reemergence of Stephen Miller, who was Trump’s advisor and speechwriter and reportedly the mastermind behind the former president’s family separation policy on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Under the aegis of Miller, a total Trump sycophant, young children were held in chain-link pens in warehouses for extended periods without adequate food, beds or basic sanitation. This fascistic Trump advisor is a person who should never be allowed to wield governmental power.
Getting back to my 2019 editorial on Trump’s immigration policies, which centered on his border wall (which Mexico ostensibly would pay for), I mentioned that the 1924 Immigration Act was a congressional effort “to shut down Jewish immigration, along with those coming to these shores from southern and eastern Europe, and from Asia.”
In 1924, the Jewish World pointed out, regarding the Johnson immigration bill, “It is no secret that it is aimed directly at the Jews and Catholics.” Sadly, within about a decade, when Jews tried to flee beyond the reach of Hitler and his henchmen, the gates to this country were closed. Only a few places around the globe provided a haven for Jewish refugees from the Nazi onslaught.
And I also mentioned in 2019 that “readers of this newspaper are mainly of the first and second generations of their families born in America. We should have rachmones, compassion, for the new generation of immigrants, and for those looking to gain a foothold in this country that our forebears saw as the Goldene Medine, the land of gold.”
Jewish poet Emma Lazarus expressed the best hope of America in “The New Colossus,” as she put words on the silent lips of the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
— Mordecai Specktor
editor [at] ajwnews [dot] com
(American Jewish World, March 2024)
