Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Untangling Immigration's Double Helix

This article explains the immigration problem from feelings in 1751 about "aliens" (Germans then), to Arizona's new law about different aliens. - - Donna Poisl

Arizona's new immigration law is only the latest in our nation's long history of conflicted feelings about the undocumented among us

By PETER SCHRAG

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin described the influx of German immigrants who were moving into Pennsylvania as "a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them and will never adopt our Language or Customs any more than they can acquire our Complexion." The effect, he warned, was that "even our Government will become precarious." Those words could have been written yesterday about Hispanics.

The issue of immigration has long troubled Americans. Arizona's new law, which gives police the power to detain those they suspect of being illegal aliens, is only the latest chapter in centuries of intermittent efforts to slow immigration, or stop it altogether.
Click on the headline to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.

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