# What if we went back to early 20th century immigration policy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076 "2023-08-25T13:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2023, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/21 "2023-08-26T00:36:33Z")
No I don’t for a minute think that large number of the world’s poor want to come to the USA to “live off welfare” as the raging rightists / racists like to claim. That’s pure fearmongering and bogey-man creating. What I’m suggesting that **Omar** was suggesting is that people come for the total package. Which includes some fantasy about how great it is here and the ease of making a US middle class (ie. poor country wonderful) living. Under current circumstances, the undocumented make very little use of what little safety net we have. For fear of discovery and deportation. Which is an evil place to put them, and which directly contributes to shady businesses run by shitty Americans exploiting the crap out of those folks. If at a stroke we regularized those folks, they’d begin to use those safety net services, as it would be fully their right to do so. And if we did have a mostly open border, the same would be true of new arrivals. Word travels fast. It gets garbled along the way, but it travels fast. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2023, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/22 "2023-08-26T09:42:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Basically for great social safety nets you are talking Western Europe and Scandinavia. Australia and New Zealand mean nothing to you? I’d add the more developed parts of Asia too; Japan, Singapore, South Korea… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2023, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/23 "2023-08-26T17:25:33Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > The US has a mediocre social safety net _at best_. Sure, we live in a world with many countries that have poor social safety nets, but that doesn’t mean that we should pretend that ours is actually solid. I might say mediocre +. Not bad for seniors. And if you add in some states benefits like CA, you might get to a B rating. But yeah, it is Scandinavia with the A+, and western Europe with B+ or so. > [@Shakester](#): > > Australia and New Zealand mean nothing to you? I’d add the more developed parts of Asia too; Japan, Singapore, South Korea… Yeah, pretty much all the Commonwealth, sure. No doubt that a tiny bit of Asia has done Okay also. But that still leaves Most of Asian, most of Africa, most ot Eastern Europe, amd most of the South of the border nations to get an even poorer grades in this. “America! We’re doing better than average!” is not what we should be pushing for. We need Universal Health at least. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/24 "2023-08-27T01:32:39Z")
but no poster has mentioned the late 19th early 20th ccentury bans against Chinese and Japanese immigration ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/25 "2023-08-27T01:42:45Z")
Other than the second sentence of the OP where he said that discriminatory part of the policy would not be part of his proposal. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/26 "2023-08-27T02:22:37Z")
We can’t afford to have both open immigration and a good social safety net for all. But we could probably have open immigration and a social safety net that didn’t kick in until you’d lived in the US for 5 years, or something like that. Make immigrants (other than refugees) prove that they can go back home if they don’t earn their keep, and otherwise only restrict actual criminals, etc. I think we’d end up stronger. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/27 "2023-08-27T02:28:38Z")
The answer to the thread title question is — the far right wins way more elections than now, and not only reverses the policy, but makes immigration even more difficult than today. David Frum famously summed it up as [If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/22/705729699/the-atlantic-if-liberals-wont-enforce-borders-fascists-will). I favor more legal immigration and somewhat more immigration overall. Convincing any median voters lurking here that progressives want open borders is a gift to Donald Trump and friends. I don’t want that, and neither does Joe Biden. The best recent proposal for a more liberal immigration policy, that won’t turn most Americans into Trumpers, is the Dignity Act: > **[The Dignity Act of 2023](https://www.usccb.org/resources/dignity-act-2023)** > > What is the Dignity Act of 2023? The Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act of 2023, or “DIGNIDAD (Dign... ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/28 "2023-08-27T03:00:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > We can’t afford to have both open immigration and a good social safety net for all. But we could probably have open immigration and a social safety net that didn’t kick in until you’d lived in the US for 5 years, or something like that. The crucial phrase above is — or something like that. If the social safety net doesn’t kick in at all, the biggest carve-out may be the [Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act](https://www.cms.gov/files/document/emtala-know-your-rights.pdf). And without that, under your plan, we will have a U.S. health care disaster. Many millions of impoverished women from around the world will rush here to give birth, before the open borders policy can change back, so their child will be an American — and then must give birth outside a hospital and with unlicensed birth attendants. Most of those babies will live, but a lot will die! What if we keep the emergency and childbirth treatment act in place? Then, America’s obstetrical infrastructure will be overwhelmed, for a period of years, not only by new immigrants, but also by everyone else who can’t be fit in. Progressives may be thinking there would be no need for a big rush to immigrate, since open borders is a permanent change to the law. But potential immigrants, sensibly and correctly, would not believe that. They would know that immigration is a U.S. political football which goes in both directions. Open borders is an unrealistic progressive policy that inadvertently supercharges Donald Trump’s politically most potent issue. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/29 "2023-08-27T03:11:19Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > And without that, under your plan, we will have a U.S. health care disaster. Many millions of impoverished women from around the world will rush here to give birth, before the open borders policy can change back, so their child will be an American — and then must give birth outside a hospital and with unlicensed birth attendants. Most of those babies will live, but a lot will die! [Citation needed] ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/30 "2023-08-27T03:36:09Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > [Citation needed] I do not understand what citation is requested. If you want to find out what happens when there is a truly massive immigration rate for a few years, you could read about 1950’s Israel. The difference between that situation, and the proposed U.S. open borders policy, is that Israeli immigration policy was not going to change back and forth at each election. Perhaps I should ask for citation of any country that implemented an open borders policy and failed to subsequently reverse it due to a conservative reaction. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/31 "2023-08-27T05:04:14Z")
My great grandparents came here around 1900-ish from the pale of Russia and eastern Europe. I thought the bar was a little higher than just not having a contagious disease. Didn’t they need to have some money, a place to stay preferably with family already here, and some sort of occupation or profession? They had to prove they’d be contributing and not a drain on resources, I thought. Do they capture that sort of info from immigrants today? I agree the vast majority of immigrants today are people we want here and need here. But maybe some of the differences now are that it’s much easier to get here than 100 years ago, as mentioned, and that the world’s population is much larger, so there’s that much more demand. I think there are much better ways to process people as they arrive here that would be fairer and more humane. We can put a man on the moon, but we can’t figure out how to manage a steady stream of people wanting to come here and contribute. SMH ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/32 "2023-08-27T05:53:59Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > If you want to find out what happens when there is a truly massive immigration rate for a few years, you could read about 1950’s Israel. The difference between that situation, and the proposed U.S. open borders policy, is that Israeli immigration policy was not going to change back and forth at each election. Surely you must be joking. You think the situation that applies to a tiny nation built around a religion that is a minority religion in many countries around the world, which had just undergone a genocide, is at all analogous to the United States? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/33 "2023-08-27T10:59:58Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Didn’t they need to have some money, a place to stay preferably with family already here, and some sort of occupation or profession? According to the records I’ve seen for my family, they were asked where they were going to stay and with whom. Of course, it was just as easy to lie back then as it would be today. As far as an occupation or profession - I guess that depends on what you consider an occupation or profession. I wouldn’t consider unskilled labor an occupation and none of my immigrant ancestors had any skills. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/34 "2023-08-27T11:51:25Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The point isn’t that e.g. Swedes would come here for the unemployment insurance, worker’s comp, and SNAP. But e.g. Guatemalans might. Hope I don’t seem like I’m picking on you in particular, and we may not totally disagree, but: I don’t know anyone from Guatemala, but I know someone from El Salvador. He came here because he was about to be conscripted in a private army – and because this sounded to be a country where you could start a business and prosper. The town I live in has a large population of immigrants, most of whom come from the same medium sized central Mexican city that is a prime transit stop for drug transport, is run by drug cartels, and has one of the worst murder rates in Mexico. My town’s crime rate – close to the lowest in Pennsylvania. People leave their garages open and bicycles aren’t stolen. The reason people come here is not to find a social safety net, just as it is not to find a haven for criminality. They come for physical safety and economic opportunity. This is the progressive truth. The progressive falsehood is that America would continue to be anywhere near the way progressives want it to be if our borders were open. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/35 "2023-08-27T11:52:37Z")
Back then it took substantially resources to get to the US, so it was generally plausible that if you could afford passage you weren’t then going to sleep on the streets. Today, it would make sense to require some kind of financial guarantee, which might just be a US resident who was willing to say, “i will be responsible to make sure they are fed and housed” for some period of time, which could be waived if the immigrant put up enough money. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/36 "2023-08-27T12:56:01Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > I’m sorry, could you name some of these countries that have worse social safety nets than America does? I don’t doubt you are right about the numbers - there are many Somalias, Afghanistans, and Belaruses out there - but I’m wondering what nation, with a comparable economy to the US, has worse social safety nets, in your opinion. Given that we’re discussing immigration, to the extent that the comparative safety nets matter, the comparison is between the safety net here and those of the countries people are immigrating from. By and large, they do not have comparable economies, and their safety nets range from worse to nonexistent. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/37 "2023-08-27T13:22:59Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > What bad things would happen? We’d become less white. _Duh._ That’s why the right wing (meaning basically all of the GOP at this point) opposes immigration. They’d love more immigration from white countries. It’s just that not enough people want to immigrate from Scotland or Norway or Australia to make a difference. If I’d been born and raised in one of those nations, why would I want to immigrate to the U.S.? No, the people who want to immigrate here in serious numbers are coming from Africa, Asia, and of course Latin America. Black people, brown people, yellow people - _oh noes!_ go the ‘social conservatives.’ We could use a much more open door than we have now, certainly. IIRC, the American birth rate has dropped below replacement level, and in the long run, that’s going to be a limiting factor on our economic growth and well-being. And right now, our labor supply could use a shot in the arm: I still see more “help wanted” signs now than I ever did at any time before the pandemic. I’m surprised more businesses haven’t closed just because they couldn’t keep themselves staffed. So yeah, let’s let more of them in. Certainly let’s speed up the processing of people seeking asylum here: those fleeing persecution and other dangerous conditions should have as wide-open a door as we can manage. And because full employment is good for workers, if possible we should vary the level of entrants allowed with economic circumstances, so as to keep employment at or near full to the extent possible. But with that caveat, let 'em in! They’ll come over here, work hard and support themselves, and do their best to see that their children prosper more than they do. They’ll grow our economy and help keep our country great, just like my grandparents did when they came over with their families over a century ago. And as an added bonus, it’ll give the racists a permanent case of apoplexy. Icing on the cake! ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/38 "2023-08-27T15:07:24Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > We can’t afford to have both open immigration and a good social safety net for all. Do we know that’s true? And I’m not ignoring Exapno’s post (which sent me into a depression) re: the fact that we don’t care for our current citizens in terms of housing and medical care. But is this truly a “guns and butter” exercise, where it’s literally impossible to accommodate a more liberal policy unless something else suffers? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/39 "2023-08-27T15:10:10Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > We could use a much more open door than we have now, certainly. IIRC, the American birth rate has dropped below replacement level, and in the long run, that’s going to be a limiting factor on our economic growth and well-being. This is the math that seems to be regularly ignored. You want your SS funded through your retirement? You should support a generous immigration policy. This is not even open to argument. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076/40 "2023-08-27T15:27:42Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Back then it took substantially resources to get to the US, so it was generally plausible that if you could afford passage you weren’t then going to sleep on the streets. Not sure how true that was. People who travelled in the lowest cost passage had often scraped up all of their family’s resources to do so, and spent it all or nearly all on the passage. Then, as now, many immigrants fled circumstances that had, for one reason or another, become intolerable. My maternal grandparents had been in open rebellion against the Tzar, broke my grandfather out of prison, and fled here. I very much doubt they’d have been allowed in today. My paternal grandparents fled pogroms and the remains of WWI-torn Poland. They had so few resources that my father nearly starved before they could get back for him (he’d been left temporarily with relatives; but nobody had enough food.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-went-back-to-early-20th-century-immigration-policy/989076.md?page=3)