A nation that respects its own sovereignty controls immigration. In the past that has been the history of America. At present, that concept is somewhat in doubt, so let’s look at the history.

Yesterday Politico Magazine posted an article by George J. Borjas, a professor of economics and social policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (hardly a normal conservative source).

Here are a few relevant statements from the article concerning the media reaction to Donald Trump’s recent statements about immigration:

As with practically all of Trump’s policy statements, the over-the-top commentary came swiftly. Over at the Washington Post an opinionator opined (and I’m only slightly paraphrasing) that Trump’s ideas were crazier than crazy. I knew it wouldn’t take long before somebody called them un-American, and MSNBC nicely obliged; a commentator commented that “this is the single most un-American thing I have ever heard in my life.”

If all those pundits had bothered to do just a couple of minutes of googling before reacting, they would have discovered that immigrant vetting, and even extreme immigrant vetting, has a very long tradition in American history. Since before the founding even, U.S. policies about whom the country chooses to welcome and reject have changed in response to changing conditions. As early as 1645, the Massachusetts Bay Colony prohibited the entry of poor or indigent persons. By the early 20th century, the country was filtering out people who had “undesirable” traits, such as epileptics, alcoholics and polygamists. Today, the naturalization oath demands that immigrants renounce allegiance to any foreign state. Even our Favorite Founding Father du jour, Alexander Hamilton (himself an immigrant), thought it was important to scrutinize whoever came to the United States.

During America’s colonial years, immigrants were required to provide surety as a guarantee that they would place a financial or other burden on the current citizens of the country.

The article further states:

And in 1740, Delaware enacted legislation to “Prevent Poor and Impotent Persons being Imported.” Many of these colonial-era restrictions remained in place until 1875, when the Supreme Court invalidated state-imposed head taxes on immigrants to fund the financial burden of caring for poor entrants, and made immigration the sole purview of the federal government. But that wasn’t the end of immigrant filters. Congress responded by creating the vetting system that—although modified many times—remains in place today. In 1875, Congress prohibited the entry of prostitutes and convicts. In 1882, Congress suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers, and added idiots, lunatics and persons likely to become public charges to the list for good measure.

Screening immigrants is not un-American–taking in thousands of people who may not respect our culture or our laws is un-American. We have a right and responsibility to all Americans to protect the laws and sovereignty of America.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. If more people know America’s immigration history, the press would not be getting away with telling the lies it is telling.