Dale M. Brumfield

Guest Columnist

Many American supporters of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy at the southern border claim or assume that their own families immigrated to the United States legally, and they accordingly expect 21st century immigrants to follow in an identical manner. But what these supporters fail to understand is that their 18th and 19th century immigrant ancestors broke no laws because there were literally no laws to break. In fact, today’s laws would exclude many of these supporters’ own ancestors.

From 1607 until 1882 an increasingly industrialized United States needed workers, and immigration – according to the 2004 Princeton study “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America” – was “encouraged and virtually unfettered.” Immigrants did not have to obtain visas at U.S. consulates before entering the country, apply for permanent residencies or wait to obtain a green card. Rather, immigrants simply arrived at ports of entry, such as Ellis Island in New York, where they were allowed into the country. The only exclusions were those in narrowly-defined categories, such as felons and the obviously insane.

Accordingly, before the 20th century, there was also no federal bureaucracy responsible for enforcing immigration. American borders were largely unguarded, and people in the United States without legal status were unlikely to be caught or deported since almost no money was appropriated for immigration enforcement or deportation.

Like today, there was growing nativist resistance to this “unfettered” immigration. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted Chinese workers from immigrating because they were so universally despised in the western states to the point sinophobic lawmakers warned of a “yellow takeover.” Subsequent racially-motivated laws barred lawful immigration of all Asians (except Japanese and Filipinos), prostitutes, polygamists, persons with “dangerous and loathsome contagious disease,” anarchists, radicals, the poor and the illiterate. In fact, it is estimated that the U.S. Immigration Service excluded only 1 percent of the 25 million European immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island between 1880 and 1920.

Many of our American ancestors came to the United States “legally” for almost identical reasons as those entering “illegally” today. Economic deprivations, tyranny, mob rule and weak judicial systems flourished in European and South American countries at the time. In the mid-1800s, more than one-half of the population of Ireland emigrated to the United States, as did an equal number of Germans, who came because of famine, civil unrest, religious persecution, severe unemployment or unimaginable economic or political hardships.

Like those of the previous centuries, today’s immigrants frequently face in their home countries inexorable hardships that occur sometimes at a moment’s notice, forcing them to make a split-second decision that affords little to no time to begin the teeth-grinding process of properly and legally immigrating to the United States. Even Staunton founder John Lewis was forced to quickly immigrate to America from Ulster, Ireland in 1732 to escape retribution from a wealthy landowner, with whom he had a gunfight.

According to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, a visa petition can take up to 8 months just to be reviewed, being sent the paperwork can take another one to three months, and scheduling an interview can take yet another two to four months. Then, once in the country, it may take 6-10 years to become a permanent citizen. This timeline is no comfort to a Central American family facing cartel terrorizations or judicial or religious persecution.

America’s cumbersome and time-consuming legal immigration process is largely responsible for her own illegal immigration dilemma, and until this process is streamlined and repaired, immigrants will continue to risk everything and pour in to seek a better life – just like our own ancestors.

Dale Brumfield is an author and digital archaeologist from Doswell, Virginia. He writes about local history for The News Leader.