TGHusker
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http://time.com/4656940/donald-trump-immigration-order-1952/
This is an interesting article on immigration bans since the early 1950s.
There are 2 contrasting legislative actions, 1952 & 1965, which on the surface one gives Trump permission and on the surface one does not give Trump permission to do what he has done.
Quotes;
The 1952 law tweaked but maintained the quotas established by the Immigration Act of 1924. And, though it eliminated the racial condition for citizenship that had long held back Asians, it set the new quotas in such a way that favored Western Europeans. A key provision, however, gave the President the ability to overrule those quotas.
Section 212(f), states: "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
However the article states:
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an amendment to the 1952 law that changed the composition of immigration into the U.S. by eliminating discriminatory quota imbalances—a move that also led to the first limits placed on Latin American immigration—and stipulating that immigrants could not be denied a visa because of their race, sex, nationality or place of birth. "For over four decades, the immigration policy of the United States has been twisted and has been distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system," Johnson said when he signed the law on New York's Liberty Island.
The new law, however, did not create a wide-open door. It also did not specifically get rid of a clause that allows the president to deny anybody entry to the U.S. under special circumstances. "The way the law is written, it doesn’t matter what the reason is," Mae Ngai, an immigration historian at Columbia University, explains.
There's only a 13-year difference between 1952 and 1965, yet two very different Americas existed during those years. The American Society for Legal History's Rebecca Scott calls the world that produced the 1965 legislation much more "inclusive" and "rights-conscious" than that of the early '50s.
Some legal scholars argue that it's not up to Trump to decide which of those periods is the best parallel for today. If Congress restricted the president's ability to block immigration based on national origins in 1965, they contend, then Trump's executive order must be illegal, though he is certainly not the first president to make use of Section 212(f) after 1965.
Other presidents and their bans:
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan used it to bar “any undocumented aliens arriving at the borders of the United States from the high seas," while in 1986, he used it to bar Cuban nationals, with some exceptions. In 1994, Bill Clinton used it to bar anyone in the Haitian military or government affiliated with the 1991 coup d’état that overthrew the democratically-elected president. Ten years later, George W. Bush used it to bar corrupt members of the government of Zimbabwe from entering the U.S. And in 2012, Barack Obama used it to bar hackers aiding Iran and Syria.
Trump, however, appears to be the first president to apply a blanket ban to everyone from a specific country (more than one, in this case) since President Jimmy Carter used the provision to keep out Iranians during the Iran hostage crisis.
Article's conclusion
Whatever the upshot of the legal challenges to Trump's order, some scholars say there's nothing new about his recent actions.
"We’ve always been an immigrant nation and an anti-immigrant nation," argues Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, a professor of history and American culture at the University of Michigan. For much of the 20th century, he says, "there's been tension between domestic politics that are trying to restrict in the name of populism, and it comes into conflict with a foreign policy agenda about engagement with the world."
This is an interesting article on immigration bans since the early 1950s.
There are 2 contrasting legislative actions, 1952 & 1965, which on the surface one gives Trump permission and on the surface one does not give Trump permission to do what he has done.
Quotes;
The 1952 law tweaked but maintained the quotas established by the Immigration Act of 1924. And, though it eliminated the racial condition for citizenship that had long held back Asians, it set the new quotas in such a way that favored Western Europeans. A key provision, however, gave the President the ability to overrule those quotas.
Section 212(f), states: "Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate."
However the article states:
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an amendment to the 1952 law that changed the composition of immigration into the U.S. by eliminating discriminatory quota imbalances—a move that also led to the first limits placed on Latin American immigration—and stipulating that immigrants could not be denied a visa because of their race, sex, nationality or place of birth. "For over four decades, the immigration policy of the United States has been twisted and has been distorted by the harsh injustice of the national origins quota system," Johnson said when he signed the law on New York's Liberty Island.
The new law, however, did not create a wide-open door. It also did not specifically get rid of a clause that allows the president to deny anybody entry to the U.S. under special circumstances. "The way the law is written, it doesn’t matter what the reason is," Mae Ngai, an immigration historian at Columbia University, explains.
There's only a 13-year difference between 1952 and 1965, yet two very different Americas existed during those years. The American Society for Legal History's Rebecca Scott calls the world that produced the 1965 legislation much more "inclusive" and "rights-conscious" than that of the early '50s.
Some legal scholars argue that it's not up to Trump to decide which of those periods is the best parallel for today. If Congress restricted the president's ability to block immigration based on national origins in 1965, they contend, then Trump's executive order must be illegal, though he is certainly not the first president to make use of Section 212(f) after 1965.
Other presidents and their bans:
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan used it to bar “any undocumented aliens arriving at the borders of the United States from the high seas," while in 1986, he used it to bar Cuban nationals, with some exceptions. In 1994, Bill Clinton used it to bar anyone in the Haitian military or government affiliated with the 1991 coup d’état that overthrew the democratically-elected president. Ten years later, George W. Bush used it to bar corrupt members of the government of Zimbabwe from entering the U.S. And in 2012, Barack Obama used it to bar hackers aiding Iran and Syria.
Trump, however, appears to be the first president to apply a blanket ban to everyone from a specific country (more than one, in this case) since President Jimmy Carter used the provision to keep out Iranians during the Iran hostage crisis.
Article's conclusion
Whatever the upshot of the legal challenges to Trump's order, some scholars say there's nothing new about his recent actions.
"We’ve always been an immigrant nation and an anti-immigrant nation," argues Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, a professor of history and American culture at the University of Michigan. For much of the 20th century, he says, "there's been tension between domestic politics that are trying to restrict in the name of populism, and it comes into conflict with a foreign policy agenda about engagement with the world."
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