We Really Did Handle Immigration Better At Ellis Island

LifeZette posted an article today about the migrant caravan attempting to get into America from Mexico.

The article reports:

Migrants who came with the caravan are suffering from respiratory infections, tuberculosis, chickenpox and other serious health issues, Tijuana’s Health Department warned on Thursday morning.

The spokesman told Fox News that out of 6,000 migrants currently residing in the city, over a third of them (2,267) are being treated for health-related issues.

There are three confirmed cases of tuberculosis, four cases of HIV/AIDS and four separate cases of chickenpox, the spokesman said.

At least 101 migrants have lice and multiple instances of skin infections, the department’s data shows.

There’s also a threat of Hepatitis outbreak due to unsanitary conditions, the spokesman said.

At Ellis Island, immigrants who were not healthy or had no marketable skills were returned to their home countries.

The biggest change to America’s immigration policies occurred in 1965 and was promoted by Senator Ted Kennedy.

So what did The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (H.R. 2580) do? Here are the basics:

The Hart–Celler Act abolished the quota system based on national origins that had been American immigration policy since the 1920s. The 1965 Act marked a change from past U.S. policy which had discriminated against non-northern Europeans. In removing racial and national barriers the Act would significantly alter the demographic mix in the U.S.

The new law maintained the per-country limits, but also created preference visa categories that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or U.S. residents. The bill set numerical restrictions on visas at 170,000 per year, with a per-country-of-origin quota. However, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and “special immigrants” had no restrictions.

On September 2, 2009, Numbers USA posted the following about that change:

Ted Kennedy’s immigration policies have destroyed the ability of the United States to be an environmentally sustainable nation in any decade soon because of the gigantic U.S. population growth that he has forced.

And Ted Kennedy’s immigration policies have knocked hundreds of thousands of Americans out of the middle class as their occupations have collapsed and wages declined because of inundation with Kennedy’s favored foreign workers, or because they have directly lost their jobs to foreign competitors.

We need to consider the consequences of the Hart-Celler Act as we decide how to deal with the migrant caravans that are attempting to breach our southern border.