Migrant Crime
They say,
As if it were a clever new term they just came up with.
Actually, some form of the term has been thrown around since very early in the American experience.
The United States was founded by immigrants and sustained by successive waves of immigration. Each wave was accompanied by some measure of criminal activity on the part of both citizens, (previous immigrants) and to a lesser degree, the newcomers.
At each inflection point there were public fears and prognostications of doom, the “end of our way of life”, and the horrors to come if we allow this to continue. None of which were ever realized, or proved to be accurate.
To illustrate this point the following newspaper clippings from various times, and places, in the history of the United States are provided:
“It is ungenerous, in the mercantile part of the community, to prefer foreigners to their own countrymen, nor do I”.
Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser – Sept,21 1785
https://www.newspapers.com/article/poulsons-american-daily-advertiser-poul/156495046/
“The decisión of judge Ward will be dangerous as a precedent” said Mr Levy “and I don’t believe the government can afford to allow it to stand. Several principles of law are involved which I believe Judge Ward has decided incorrectly and if a decision of this sort is allowed to stand the United States will find itself unable too exclude hundreds of immigrants who would otherwise have been deported as undesirable”.
The New York Sun Feb16 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-sun-undesiresble-immigrant-ny-sun-fe/156491743/
“Those who would understand the so called waves of crime and lawlessness among the non-English speaking groups in this country need to know something of such experiences as these”
New York Times Feb 26, 1922
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-times-new-york-times-feb-26/156492941/
“That is one of the reasons why there is so much immigrant crime in this country. The mother does not understand our problems, and even her own children, and therefore cannot advise and help them properly”
Courier Post- Camden, NJ
May 9, 1931
https://www.newspapers.com/article/evening-courier-immigrant-crime-courier/156493734/
“Mexico has received official reports from its consul, since many of the zooters are Mexican”
Photos of servicemen and Latinos from the Zoot Suit Riots in June 1943
The Times-News Twin Falls Idaho- June 11, 1943
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-times-news-photos-of-servicemen-and/33308429/
Even a casual observer of human history must note a tendency of powerful societies to profit from the abuse of less powerful groups.
In the American experience this is illustrated most obviously in the shameful history of slavery, the decimation of Native Americans and the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
This tendency is usually accompanied, and justified, by a dehumanizing perception of the less powerful group. The thought pattern bring something like;
they are not like us, therefore they are not us, therefore we can do what we want to them because they don’t count.
Often, after sufficient time has passed, the powerful society has a form of popular remorse. They regret and reject the fore-bearers who behaved that way, pointing their judgement backward while oblivious to a newer version of the same behavior happening a that very moment.
Let us look objectively at how the latest wave of immigrants are being portrayed today, and tomorrow, and consider if what we are about to do resembles those things our society regrets having done in the past?
Venting Boomer 