alt Hacker NewsAs a percent of the population we have as many foreign born residents as we did in the 1800s and more than we ever did in the 1900s. In fact, some stats even show we have more foreign born residents as a percent than we’ve ever had and it could be even higher than reported given how many folks are here illegally.
People forget that we shut down immigration for a few decades in the 1900s to let people assimilate.
We’ve overdone it, we need to slow the influx again.
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Also to note, the shut down of immigration in the 1900s wasn't a shut down.
It was quota was set at 2% of each nationality's population as recorded in the 1890 census. That date is revealing.
The mass migration of Southern and Eastern Europeans, Italians, Jews, Slavs, etc happened after 1890. The act anchored the quota to 1890, Congress deliberately set the baseline before those groups arrived in large numbers.
The result: nations with large post-1890 diasporas, and of course all of Asia and Africa, got tiny quotas, while Northern and Western European nations got huge ones.
I don't call this stopping immigration. Rather codified national selection. It may have helped with "assimilation". But no one can deny the maneuver was for national discrimination.
At the start. Didn't the U.S, then not yet united, have 100% foreign born residents?