Today's debate over immigration is the perfect example of Solomon's ancient truism in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."
Responding to massive levels of mass migration to America at the turn of the 20th century, which was driving down wages and creating growing pockets of non-assimilation, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924. The Quota Act set the nation's first immigration ceiling of about 350,000. Three years later, the Immigration Act ushered in a 40-year pause in mass immigration that was an undiluted good for white and black Americans.
The population of America after the Civil War exploded, driven by immigration, which caused constant problems in Europe and the westward expansion of America, growing 25-30 percent every decade. This caused increasing problems for assimilation and unity, and even with the interruptions of WWI, the nation grew by 15 percent from 1910 to 1920. When that horrible war ended in 1918, it became clear that even greater waves were migrating to America, and it was simply too much.
That's when Congress enacted the two laws, creating the Great Pause that lasted more than 40 years. That immigration policy generated, maybe, the greatest single flourishing for the American Dream for all Americans, but particularly for black Americans.
Economists Kerwin Kofi Charles of the University of Chicago and Patrick Bayer at Duke University determined that from 1940 to 1970, paralleling much of the Great Pause, the average real earnings of white men rose by 210 percent and black men rose by 406 percent. Everybody won, but black Americans more so.
So to be perfectly clear, black incomes were rapidly closing the gap on white incomes, while all the ships were rising, before the disastrous change in immigration laws and the onset of the welfare state, the Great Society of the 1960s. In fact, the same economists found that from 1970 to 2014, white men's annual real income fell by 19 percent, and black men's earnings fell by 32 percent. Everybody lost, but black Americans more so.
It must be noted, with some irony, that the 1924 Immigration Act debate had embarrassing levels of prejudice to it. But the prejudice was against Southern and Eastern Europeans who had dominated that previous wave of immigration. Because prejudice is a part of the human condition, if it is not against blacks, it will be against Asians, Hispanics, or whites (where we have landed at this moment).
But prejudice was not the primary driving force so much as lack of assimilation, inability to understand self-government, and the obvious economics — the same dynamics at play today.
In the radical 1960s, which heralded in so many chickens coming home to roost, Congress reignited mass immigration in 1965. This was a zealous and ignorant attempt to try to erase the racism in the 1921 and 1924 laws, which included different levels of immigration depending on the country of origin. Of course, Congress could have thoughtfully started immigration with controlled levels, but thoughtfulness was not an element of much of the 1960s — or since.
Naturally, throwing open the doors resulted in the first wave of illegal immigration that culminated in President Reagan's greatest mistake: granting amnesty to illegals in 1986, immediately legalizing three million people who should not have been here and sending the message for even more to come. The message was received and acted on.
The difference today from the 1880s to 1920s is the massive amounts of illegal immigration we have allowed, which went on steroids during the dark years of Joe Biden. That unvetted mass immigration is new, but the havoc it is wreaking is not. We saw it in the real wage decline of white and black Americans, which has only gotten worse since 2014.
Because universities and the teachers they cranked out into public schools purposely stopped teaching real American history to focus only on the warts, most Americans today do not know that America has been around this block.
What President Trump is trying to do — against the entirety of the Democratic establishment in Congress, the media, and the courts — would almost undoubtedly have the same positive effect as it did previously to 1965. But now, not only white and black Americans, but Hispanic and Asian Americans would also greatly benefit from not having to compete with low-wage, uneducated, and unskilled illegal immigrants.
Another significant difference today is the sudden rise of AI and its increasing impact on many entry-level jobs in the economy. This dramatically adds to the urgency for mass deportations and an immigration pause. But to see that, you have to consider what is best for Americans, as Trump is, not what is best for future election interests, as Democrats are.
Rod Thomson is a former daily newspaper reporter and columnist, Salem radio host and ABC TV commentator, and current Founder of The Thomson Group, a Florida-based political consulting firm. He has eight children, seven grandchildren, and a rapacious hunger to fight for America for them. Follow him on Twitter at @Rod_Thomson. Email him at [email protected].
