Here's some perspective from an earlier period to consider:

https://owlcation.com/humanities/When-the-Native-American-Indians-first-met-the-European-Settlers

"When the Native American Indians First Met the European Settlers" Updated on June 13, 2016

Also, Charles M. Blow's NYTimes column today "White Extinction Anxiety" provides some current details, including this:

***

Strip all the other rationales away from this draconian immigration policy. This is at the core: White extinction anxiety, white displacement anxiety, white minority anxiety. This is the fear and anxiety Trump is playing to. Politico Magazine dubbed Trump “Pat Buchanan With Better Timing.”

***

While Trump is focused now on the borders, would his next steps be to deny due process from within?
 

Personally, I think illegal immigrants should enjoy every human right. I just think they should enjoy them someplace else.

The problem with Trump's proposal is NOT that it violates the rights of illegal immigrants. They have no right to be here, and so expelling them from our country without a hearing cannot violate their rights. The only right they have in this regard is that the expulsion be carried out in a humane manner.

No, the real problem is that procedural protections are not for the guilty, they are for the innocent. Without at least some procedural protections, there's nothing to stop the government from simply expelling citizens or legal aliens while falsely claiming they are illegals.

I really don't expect Trump to do that sort of thing, but it would be a bad precedent for future administrations to exploit.

As a compromise: You must make a claim of legal status in order to invoke the right to a hearing, with false claim of legal status being a crime. With that modification I would support deportation without such hearings.

As for asylum, we have multiple consulates in Mexico where somebody can apply for asylum in the US, without first traveling to the US. We have such consulates in almost every country, world-wide. Why do these 'asylum seekers' not avail themselves of this convenience?

Because they are illegal immigrants who have been taught to apply for asylum if they are caught, that's why.
 

"Strip all the other rationales away from this draconian immigration policy. This is at the core: White extinction anxiety,"

If you listen to the left, and strip all the other rationales away from open borders ideology, what's left? White extinction aspirations.

Anyway, now that the leading candidate for the presidency of Mexico, Obrador, has openly advocated illegal entry into the US, we're just one election away from illegal immigration across our southern border being literally, not just figuratively, an invasion.
 

Brett's comments are another perfect example of the mindset of modern 'conservatives' that I spoke of in the Minsky moment conversation where I posited that the election, and going along with by so many, of an authoritarian buffoon doesn't indicate a lack of risk aversion among Americans or a failure of our institutions rather than just the culmination of a process of radicalization of one of our political philosophies and parties. The GOP has become a party of extremists and crackpots as their norm and mean not as outliers, the 'base' has become the entire party. It's the party of Limbaugh and Hannity, not Kirk and Burke. So they could care less that their current head casually proposes doing away with a bedrock part of our law or contradicts what the author of one of our long-standing cherished principle had to say on the subject, they just want to blow all that up anyway. They can reach this place because after years of being fed outrage hyperbole they see everything in extreme ways, everything is an existential crisis for which our hard won traditions might need to be tossed to deal with (hence their talk of 'invasion' and 'infestation'). So people like Brett can't just condemn the thought of lifting the right of due process (which has been promised to *all persons* since the 14th Amendment was ratified about 150 years ago), he has to try to work out a 'compromise' with our long held right (his compromise equates to attaching a penalty to anyone who mounts a defense and happens to lose at court).

"Why do these 'asylum seekers' not avail themselves of this convenience?"

Why do people who are often literally peasants running for their lives not navigate the byzantine bureaucracies that conservatives moan about for things like getting a building permit? These kind of questions indicate an obtuseness that, were it not for their impact on the desperate, would otherwise be laughable.
 

Anyone familiar with Brett's comments history at this Blog and other blogs should be well aware of Brett's personal anxieties with the changing demographics. Brett and his ilk have been looking for a leader like Trump to answer the changing demographics. Brett looks at these changes as a zero sum game as is obvious with his 6:34 AM portend"

"If you listen to the left, and strip all the other rationales away from open borders ideology, what's left? White extinction aspirations."

No question mark, but a period. Brett has bought into the Pat Buchanan Kool Aid.

Blow's column includes these quotes from a recent Brookings report:

“First, for the first time since the Census Bureau has released these annual statistics, they show an absolute decline in the nation’s white non-Hispanic population — accelerating a phenomenon that was not projected to occur until the next decade.”

“Second, the new numbers show that for the first time there are more children who are minorities than who are white, at every age from zero to nine. This means we are on the cusp of seeing the first minority white generation, born in 2007 and later, which perhaps we can dub Generation ‘Z-Plus.’”

Is this perhaps due to the opiod crisis that seems to include many Trump supporters? Self-inflicted?

But will Trump stop at the borders as I asked at the close of my 6:07 AM comment?

 

Shag, you're talking about the same guy who has expressed his admiration for the crackdown in Tiennamen Square, for how dictators like Kim can make his people listen to him, for the police roughing up suspects, etc., so I think it's safe to assume if he thought he could get away with it with citizens he'd be all for it.
 

" Brett's personal anxieties with the changing demographics."

Do try to keep in mind that, far from being anxious about changing demographics, I contributed to them by marrying a foreigner.

There's a difference between the natural demographic change which even immigration controlled for the benefit of Americans would bring, and engineered demographic and cultural change for the purpose of replacing the native population with one thought to be more tractable. It's this latter I object to.

I really don't care if a future America is darker skinned, has slanted eyes, or what have you. I care very much if our culture has been deliberately erased by mass importation of people from conflicting cultures, as is being done in Europe.
 

Brett's proposed "compromise" suffers from 2 fatal defects:

1. The plain text of the 5th A extends due process protection to every person.

2. Forcing the victims of Trump's ethnic cleansing to make a claim of legal status won't work in practice because the thugs responsible can just ignore the claim and deport the person (or kidnap their children) anyway. Not much you can do about that once you're in Guatemala. No, due process requires a hearing before a neutral arbiter. And that's pretty much all that's required now.
 

This comment has been removed by the author.
 

Different in what way?

Foreign citizens have no liberty or property right to enter or remain in our country, apart from those Congress chooses to grant. What Congress chooses to grant, it can withdraw.

Congress can fix asylum abuse by economic migrants very easily.

1) Require all asylum seekers to apply at diplomatic facilities or turn themselves into government custody at a port of entry into the United States.

2) Illegal entry into the United States automatically disqualifies the applicant from gaining asylum.

3) If the applicant surrenders at a port of entry, they will be detained for the duration of the asylum review.

4) All illegal immigrants found within the United States will be deported within 48 hours after a citizenship check.

Under these conditions, I guarantee asylum applications will collapse.
 

Note that Brett in his closing paragraph at 8:46 AM expresses his care for "our culture." Brett is of course speaking for himself (and perhaps his ilk of Trump's base of the Forgotten and maybe the Revengelicals, FKA Evangelicals), whatever that culture is. America's culture is not the same as Brett's concept, which is obviously ahistorical what with America's history of immigration, open, legal and otherwise, along a painful path that has seen progress. Brett has played his "race card" with his mixed race (Asian-American) son in the discussions some years back at this Blog on the UTex Fisher case on the basis that the UTex admission program favored African-Americans to the detriment of Asian-Americans, even though Asian-American groups favored the UTex policy. Brett went "international" following a bad divorce but Brett is not international in any meaningful sense.

What is the "natural demographic change" that Brett goes along with? Has Brett no knowledge of the Mexicans in the Southwest going back in time? Perhaps the negatives on White Americans' decreasing numbers is "natural." Affluence and claims of superiority serve as a "natural" for decreasing births. Perhaps more older White males should go "international" in the manner of Brett, although that would lead to mixed race children. Would that be "natural"? As to Brett's:

" ... for the purpose of replacing the native population with one thought to be more tractable. It's this latter I object to."

consider the earlier perspective of Native Americans I referenced in my first comment. The Native Americans eventually objected. Are we now at full circle as the changing demographics impact the White "culture" that displaced Native Americans and their culture?

When Brett refers to "our culture," I'm reminded of the time when The Long Ranger and Tonto were being attached by Indians and LR said to Tonto, "It looks like we are surrounded by Indians" to which Tonto responded "What you mean 'we,' White man?"

There are many cultures in America that have gotten along, more or less, over the years. This is what Trump is challenging with his own xenophobic racist culture. I would urge more American older White males to emulate Brett's utilization of the Constitution's postal provisions to go international to perhaps learn a bit more about other cultures and cuisines, with the joys that America can offer to children of mixed races/ethnicities if due process continues for the equality of all. Compare this to the 1930s, '40s history of Germany, and how, post-WW II Germany came to terms with the failings of its leadership. America went through a Civil War because of slavery. Post WW II, America recognized the need to get rid of Jim Crow. Trump seems to want to undo the progress that has been made, first at the borders and then probably within. This will result in a national security problem and America's enemies without will see this as a weakness. Recall post-WW II America in becoming the necessary world leader that made America No. 1 economically, militarily and politicallyy had to address its history of discrimination, with President Truman's first step of desegregating the US military. And current day sports fans are enjoying the athletic skills of people of color, including those who can stand on principle by taking a knee.

 

"1. The plain text of the 5th A extends due process protection to every person."

And that's my suggestion for the process that's due. If you're not making a claim that your presence in the country is legal, there's nothing left to adjudicate, you have no right to be present in the country.

"2. Forcing the victims of Trump's ethnic cleansing to make a claim of legal status won't work in practice because the thugs responsible can just ignore the claim and deport the person (or kidnap their children) anyway. Not much you can do about that once you're in Guatemala. No, due process requires a hearing before a neutral arbiter. And that's pretty much all that's required now."

Sheesh, now simply enforcing immigration laws is "ethnic cleansing"? Mark, words have meanings. Do try to keep that in mind.

Fine, you put the neutral arbiter at the border, march them past him on their way out, and if they don't shout, "I'm a citizen, damn it!", they keep marching.

And if they do shout it, and turn out to by lying, you prosecute them.

The point is, all you need is something in place so that those who claim to be present legally can get a hearing. If the person is not making that claim, they're not entitled to anything but humane conditions on their trip out of America.
 

SPAM once again proposes his "do-do process" as a simple matter. Maybe SPAM would engage in ICE-ing his undocumented clients. As they say in hockey, "Puck you."
 

"I really don't care if a future America is darker skinned, has slanted eyes, or what have you. I care very much if our culture has been deliberately erased by mass importation of people from conflicting cultures, as is being done in Europe."

How has our culture been deliberately erased, especially since if anything newcomers love our culture in various ways, even when they live in other countries? This is an old fear, be it Catholics, Jews, Irish, Italians, Chinese, or what have you.

As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

Abraham Lincoln.
 

Shag: There are many cultures in America that have gotten along, more or less, over the years.

Not hardly. European migration destroyed the Native American culture. Anglo American culture largely displaced the Spanish and French cultures. Until recently, immigrants adopted the dominant Anglo-American culture and language.

Culture is all important, skin pigmentation is meaningless. Without the Anglo-American culture respecting freedom and adopting self reliance, we are no longer America. With such a culture, skin pigmentation is irrelevant.

Multi-culturalism is self-destructive. Why would we want to adopt the culture of nations like Guatemala or any other failing "sh_thole country" from which people flee to come to the United States?

BTW, the same argument can be applied to migrations from less free to more free states within the Union.
 

Brett, most of the current refugees ARE making a claim of legal status. They're seeking asylum, which is expressly permitted under US and international law. Trump's ethnic cleansing policy -- I'm quite aware of word choices and am describing his policy accurately -- results in blocking them from making a claim; deporting them regardless; and, worst of all, kidnapping their children in order to force them to relinquish that claim.

Note, by the way, that claims of asylum aren't "either/or". They're claims along a spectrum of evidence and policy. For such claims it makes no sense to penalize the person making the claim.
 

Mark: Trump's ethnic cleansing policy

Which ethnicity would that be? Illegal immigrants come on all pigments, ethnicities and points of origin.
 

I have not suggested penalizing anybody for making a claim of asylum. Asylum and legal presence in the country are distinct matters: If you cross the border illegally, a claim of asylum doesn't magically make your presence in the country legal. It merely opens the possibly that we might chose to make it legal. Or might not.

Asylum in the US can be applied for without illegal entry into the country; Most of those current illegal immigrants passed at least a half dozen US consulates in Mexico where they might have applied for asylum in the US, even if they had reason to think doing so at the consulate in their own country was excessively hazardous.

If you want asylum in the US, don't start by breaking our laws. Apply from the OTHER side of our border.

"Trump's ethnic cleansing policy -- I'm quite aware of word choices and am describing his policy accurately"

Like hell you are.

Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic or racial groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, often with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous.[1][page needed] The forces applied may be various forms of forced migration (deportation, population transfer), intimidation, as well as genocide and genocidal rape.

"Illegal immigrants" aren't an ethnic or racial group. They're a category of criminal.
 

"engineered demographic and cultural change for the purpose of replacing the native population with one thought to be more tractable."

Here's another example of the crackpot conspiracy/paranoia that's become mainstream with conservatism and the GOP again. Brett actually thinks there's a conspiracy afoot to replace the American people. Apart from the offensive silliness of some of the premises (more tractable?' I thought the problem was they won't fit in and conform), this is Dan Brown type of thinking. And it's the norm now for one of our ideologies/parties.
 

"Until recently, immigrants adopted the dominant Anglo-American culture and language."

Same old story. Once upon a time.

Back in Lincoln's day, Irish Catholics was deemed a big threat. "Anglo-American culture" meant a certain type of white Protestantism.

Back in the day we had laws that banned the teaching in foreign languages. No, not just German; it wasn't just a WWI thing. It was a result of the same fears. Conservatives on the Supreme Court deemed this a basic threat to "liberty" as protected by the Constitution. This was the day where innumerable newspapers in foreign languages etc. could be found too.

There is no "recent" change here, including immigrants suddenly at some vague date not adopting American culture. The complex mixing of the old and the new is basic to this country, resulting in conservative fears.
 

"that's my suggestion for the process that's due"

That doesn't address the issue at all. The entire point of due process is that it is a process to determine something at stake, to penalize a person who in good faith made the very claim that's at issue can't be part of that.

"Fine, you put the neutral arbiter at the border, march them past him on their way out, and if they don't shout, "I'm a citizen, damn it!", they keep marching."

But people can honestly think they have a claim to be an asylumee, legal alien, etc. It's the long standing law of the land that that claim should get a fair hearing, and holding a penalty over the head of someone who makes a good faith claim but loses is hardly a fair hearing.
 

Multi-culturalism is the norm in US history.

Fixed that for you. We've always been a mix of cultures. Foreign language newspapers and speakers abounded at higher rates in our cities in past times. And we became the greatest, most free power in the world with that.

It's nativism that can be destructive, ask the Georgian and Ukranian victims of Stalin or the non-Aryan victim of Hitler.


 

"Illegal immigrants come on all pigments, ethnicities and points of origin."

The vast majority of 'illegal immigrants' are people of color, that's just a fact.
 

Mr. W:

Multi-culturalism was not a norm in our celebrated melting pot. Within a generation, immigrant families generally adopted the dominant American culture and spoke the language.

All human skin comes in a color. None of us are invisible.
 

You're incorrect about the past and the future. The past was full of what was seen as the slow assimilation of foriegners (Jefferson lamented the tendency of German immigrants of his day to "preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government": Franklin said of the same group that their tendencies here showed that they "will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.” And as for today, the vast majority of second generation immigrants in the US currently do speak English.

The period you always hold up as the most free and productive of the US was the high point for the percent of our nation that was foreign born.
 

Thanks for quoting the definition of "ethnic cleansing" which shows that I used the term accurately.

"Asylum and legal presence in the country are distinct matters: If you cross the border illegally, a claim of asylum doesn't magically make your presence in the country legal. It merely opens the possibly that we might chose to make it legal. Or might not."

Let's unpack this. First, "crossing the border illegally" can mean many things, but it's generally a misdemeanor (and sometimes not a crime at all). Second, we don't usually treat misdemeanors as a basis for "zero tolerance" (a good thing for all of us). Third, Trump's thugs are deliberately blocking claims of asylum (https://twitter.com/JohnLGC/status/1011048196234067969), when they aren't using duress to get refugees from dropping their claims -- see https://twitter.com/DLind/status/1010989197811908608. Fourth, yes, a claim of asylum DOES (or at least can) make one's presence legal. From the US CIS site: "If you are eligible for asylum you may be permitted to remain in the United States. To apply for Asylum, file a Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, within one year of your arrival to the United States."

And just to clean up one other point, US law distinguishes between "asylum" and "refugee status". Only the latter can be claimed at an embassy. https://www.bing.com/search?q=asylum+us+embassy&form=EDNTHT&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=668d472c142544d2aa0430c05088779e&PC=DCTS&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=asylum+us+embassy&sc=1-17&qs=n&sk=&cvid=668d472c142544d2aa0430c05088779e Refugees at the border are technically seeking asylum. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum

 

They can apply for asylum "at" the border from the other side of the yellow line, and thus not face deportation.

If they're found INSIDE the US, they're just illegal immigrants who've been coached to claim asylum if caught.


 

Well, they could if Trump's thugs weren't blocking their ability to do so.

You seem to have left out the citation for your last sentence.

Apologies to all for breaking the page. It looked ok when I submitted the comment, but obviously it wasn't.
 

Mr. W:

Jefferson and Franklin ended up being proven wrong. We German-Americans are actually the melting pot archetype, abandoning the autocratic class system of the old country and fully adopting a new and alien Anglo-American culture. I guarantee the German-Americans of Jefferson's day spoke English as well as German, lived their lives as they pleased and harmed no one. Germans are fascinated with America because it is so different from their regimented culture and view their ethic kin here are Americans, not Germans.

 

"Thanks for quoting the definition of "ethnic cleansing" which shows that I used the term accurately."

Reading comprehension problems? Trump's policy deports those present illegally without regard to race or ethnicity, and leaves in the US those present legally, again without regard to race or ethnicity. Ethnic cleansing would do neither, it is a policy of removing people of a particular race or ethnicity regardless of their legal status,, but contingent upon their race or ethnicity.

Open borders fanaticism is reaching the point where you are now committed to describing enforcement of long standing and popular laws as a hate crime. It's part of the left's lose of the ability to accept that anybody else can legitimately prevail in elections, that anybody else's preferred policies can legitimately be put into effect.

Enforcing immigration laws isn't ethnic cleansing. It just isn't, it's an abuse of the language to claim otherwise.
 

Brett: Enforcing immigration laws isn't ethnic cleansing. It just isn't, it's an abuse of the language to claim otherwise.

Comparisons to ethnic cleansing are not linguistic errors or even abuse. This is an intentional slander.
 

"who've been coached to claim asylum if caught."

See, there's that conspiratorial mindset again.

You just can't hope to rationally persuade someone of that mindset. It's not just because the kind of overblown paranoia at the heart of a conspiratorial mindset clouds rational and open minded thought. It's also largely because no matter what sets of facts-as-they-appear you point out to them, they just see some conspiratorial 'reality' hidden under the surface.
 

"I guarantee the German-Americans of Jefferson's day spoke English as well as German"

This is a characteristically foolish in the same degree that it's overconfident thing for Bart to say. First, because he can't possibly think he knows the answer to this historical question unless he's deluded by something. Second, because common sense would force any non-deluded to think otherwise (in an age in which many people from what we today call the UK struggled with English it's far fetched to think that all of the millions of Germans who immigrated here under various conditions knew English). Third because even a cursory dive into the history suggests otherwise (one of the specific things Franklin complained about re Germans was that they couldn't speak English, there were numerous German newspapers in Franklin's day, etc).

But there's something more important to say about Bart's comments and how exemplary they are of modern day conservatives. He seems to get that his very own ancestors had the same charges levied against them, almost word for word and complaint for complaint, as conservatives today levy against current immigrants. But rather than adopt a 'there but the Grace of God went me and my family' they think they (he) was (is) special and different, those critics were obviously wrong about my group because we ended up so well, these other cultures....Brett does the same thing, he complains about people conspiring to replace the American people with more tractable peoples when he himself seems to have brought over a Filipino immigrant into our nation.

I got's mine is the philosophy, and when you combine this with the intense need to realize that you might have got mine's through some degree of luck or 'privilege' you get the current ethos of modern conservatism, one devoid of empathy which can say to a family fleeing starvation or execution trying to connect with family in a nation that holds itself out as a refuge for the oppressed masses, hey, you should have stopped at the US consulate on the other side of the border and filled out the right forms first, otherwise you should get bounced, no consideration at all!
 

More importantly, the thing is, maybe an immigrant is doing something illegal by being in the US, if so then the standard 'Anglo-Saxon' thing not to presume their illegality, but to, before applying the coercive force of the state to them, have a determination before a neutral decision maker where they can make their case.
 

"Trump's policy deports those present illegally without regard to race or ethnicity, and leaves in the US those present legally, again without regard to race or ethnicity."


Both parts of this sentence are factually false. The evidence that Trump's actions are racially motivated and racially directed is overwhelming.

"Enforcing immigration laws" (and again, Trump both is VIOLATING immigration law and calling for more extreme violations) is a *method* of ethnic cleansing. It's absurd to claim that the policy must be 100% successful in order to be characterized properly. Even at Auschwitz the Nazis didn't kill every single person, but it was still a "death camp".

As for "open borders", who's misusing words now? You just came back from a trip overseas and had to go through customs. You have personal knowledge that US borders are not "open". And while I'm sure you could find somebody, somewhere, who favors truly "open" borders, that someone is not me and that somewhere is not here. That's not a policy that has any traction in the US.

Nor is Trump merely "enforcing long-standing and popular laws". He's gone far beyond that; separating children from their parents in order to deter refugees is, in fact, a hate crime. Jeff Sessions has expressly changed the conditions for the grant of refugee status. Trump's thugs are violating US and international law by blocking asylum/refugee claims and by using duress (see earlier discussion) to extort parents to give up their claims. They are changing other policies long followed by the US government, and as the OP shows, Trump is calling for violating express provisions of the Constitution.

Actual existing US policy had reduced border apprehensions by 80% between 2000 and now. Trump's changes of policy are deliberate attempts to demagogue a racial issue for political advantage. I guess we'll see if it works.

 

A conservative law professor reminds Trump about whom due process covers:

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/06/25/a-quick-due-process-lesson-for-the-presi

But, the persons (sic) here are "infesting" the country, language used for non-persons over history.

Anyway, there is a possible religious flavor (given evangelical anti-slavery views of the day, this would be a sound assumption) in Bingham's use of "stranger."

[Matthew 25] 44 “Then they also will answer [b]Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

[BTW, the travel ban ruling wasn't handed down today.]
 

"They are changing other policies long followed by the US government,"

That's the freaking point of having elections!!!! The US government has long been following policies the American people didn't want! Now we've finally elected somebody to change them. And you'd tell us he can't, because, after all, "Elections don't have consequences.", newly elected governments aren't allowed to change policy.

"Actual existing US policy had reduced border apprehensions by 80% between 2000 and now."

Not "crossings", mind you, just apprehensions.
 

If you don't think "apprehensions" are a proxy for "crossings", then you should be asking why Trump is apprehending so many fewer people than Obama did.

As for changing policies, sure an election can do that, though perhaps you'd have a better claim for democratic legitimacy if Trump had actually, you know, gotten more votes. In any event, those policies were followed by both R and D administrations alike for years. Even Sessions decided to announce the changing criteria for refugee/asylum cases only in the last month or so.

Your claim that the American people don't want refugees fleeing gang violence to be able to claim asylum (what Sessions is now enforcing) lacks any citation.
 

For the record, here are the border crossing apprehension data: https://www.npr.org/2018/06/22/622246815/unauthorized-immigration-in-three-graphs
 

Mr. W:

Let's engage in some deductive reasoning, rather than your usual name calling.

From where did the first major wave of German immigration at the end of the eighteenth century come? Germany was a group of city states at that time. They all spoke different dialects and lived next to nations with other languages. In order to trade, they had to be multilingual.

What work did these immigrants predominantly perform in America? The Germans were primarily farmers and secondarily tradesman. The only way they sell their goods is to speak the predominant language of the nation.

Finally, they intermarried with the English speaking natives.

My mother's German family came over with the second major wave at the end of the nineteenth century. We still have their first generation English language letters and diaries. The next generation were marrying the local Irish Americans.
 

That would be ever so impressive evidence were it not for your long record of lying.

I wonder what really happened.
 

"In order to trade, they had to be multilingual."

This is silly. First of all, because you many livelihoods, especially then, would not have involved trade between states, much of it could and would be within the area the German lived, with those that spoke their tongue. Secondly, even when and if inter-state trade was involved, people could, and commonly did, go through a third party (you could sell or commit your wares to someone who spoke both languages and they would then sell them to someone in the other state. Third, as anyone who has spent time in a cosmopolitan city can tell you, business goes on all the time between people who speak very little of each other's language (I had this experience recently with a cab driver and a waitress in a big city). I mean, your argument hoists itself on its own petard as how do you think the groups you think don't learn English now make a living in the US? I worked construction to pay for college and it was common to have entire work crews that spoke very little English working for a native contractor who spoke some (though very little) Spanish. This happens all over the world, all the time.

Everything I just said of course also applies to Germans in the US. As anyone knows such Germans, like most ethnic groups immigrating to the US, tended to live in 'ethnic villages' around other people from a similar place (one of the first big congregations of German immigrants to the US was literally Germantown, PA). There only a handful of people would have to act as 'go-betweens' between the German speaking immigrants and any outsiders business might be done with.

Again, common historical knowledge confirms this common sense. We know that newspapers entirely in German thrived in the US until WWI, that's passing strange for people who picked up English and were quick to assimilate. We know from non-German contemporaries at the time like Franklin that it was common to run into Germans that could not speak English.

Heck, it's common in history books to come across passages saying something like 'the first non-English speaking immigrants to the US were mostly Germans...'

Of course, more extensive empirical work supports these common sense conclusions:

"What Salmons and Wilkerson found was a remarkable reversal of conventional wisdom: Not only did many early immigrants not feel compelled out of practicality to learn English quickly upon arriving in America, they appeared to live and thrive for decades while speaking exclusively German.

In many of the original German settlements in the mid-1800s from southeastern Wisconsin to Lake Winnebago and the Fox Valley, the researchers found that German remained the primary language of commerce, education and religion well into the early 20th century, Salmons says. Some second- and even third-generation German immigrants who were born in Wisconsin were still monolingual in German as adults.

'These folks were committed Americans,” says Salmons. 'They participated in politics, in the economy, and were leaders in their churches and their schools. They just happened not to conduct much of their life in English.'"

https://news.wisc.edu/study-debunks-myth-that-early-immigrants-quickly-learned-english/
 

Mr. W:

The reason I noted German-Americans were primarily entrepreneurs was I anticipated you would offer your experience with some foreign laborer. Farmers and tradesman have to sell their goods.

Nor did America have the Teutonic versions of urban "Little Italy" and "Chinatown" neighborhoods. The German immigrants primarily settled rural areas and started farms.

As for your cut and paste from a study concerning German settlements in a corner of Wisconsin:

In many of the original German settlements in the mid-1800s from southeastern Wisconsin to Lake Winnebago and the Fox Valley, the researchers found that German remained the primary [not sole] language of commerce, education and religion well into the early 20th century, Salmons says. Some [not all or even most second- and even third-generation German immigrants who were born in Wisconsin were still monolingual in German as adults.

But here is the money quote:

'These folks were committed Americans,” says Salmons. 'They participated in politics, in the economy, and were leaders in their churches and their schools. They just happened not to conduct much of their life in English.'"
 

"Farmers and tradesman have to sell their goods. "

First, of all, no they don't, you might want to look at what a sustenance farmer is. Secondly, when they do need to trade I explained how easy and common that is to do without speaking another language. For example, if you spoke German and English and I only spoke German I could not only trade with you but trade with you for things you got from an English only speaker or I could have you act as my agent or spokesperson to sell to outsiders. You only need a handful of people who can trade outside the dialect area. Third, as I noted, people do business all the time with others who speak very little of each other's language. Anyone who has spent time in a big city has had this occur to them when they get a taxi, shop in a convenience store, get waited on in an ethnic themed restaurant. I've eaten at large Chinese restaurants employing dozens of people where only the manager speaks decent English.

"Nor did America have the Teutonic versions of urban "Little Italy" and "Chinatown" neighborhoods. The German immigrants primarily settled rural areas and started farms."

Plenty of Germans settled in cities and like all ethnic migrants in history they naturally settled in neighborhoods with other Germans. There were plenty of German rural communities too and they likewise were communities where people surrounded themselves with other Germans, and as described above these communities could operate just fine with little English.

"Some [not all or even most"

They are referring here to *second- and even third-generation German immigrants.* We're talking one and then twice removed generations still being *monolingual in German* (monolingual means one language). So of course the number of *first generation* immigrants who were monolingual would be *higher.*

Remember, only about 4% of second generation immigrants today do not speak English (or do not speak it well).

"not to conduct much of their life in English."

Not to conduct much means what it says. Of course they may have known a handful of words (probably very basic words important to intercourse social and business), but of course that's true of today's immigrants that would be classified as not knowing English well. My waiter and taxi driver knew a handful of English words, and if you dropped me in Mexico City tomorrow I'd know a handful of Spanish words.

Your initial general guarantee is palpably unsupportable.


 

So here is where the argument is at: Bart offered a single 'deductive' reason for your claim that early German-Americans "spoke English as well as German," that is they were primarily (this itself leaves out quite a few for whom your generalization wouldn't then be true) tradespersons and farmers and such occupations would have had to be multi-lingual. But as I noted, such a deduction is unwarranted: some could have traded solely with other German speakers, some could have traded even with a very limited understanding of English, and some could have traded with the use of bi-lingual go-betweens. So, in essence, Bart literally has nothing on this side of the argument.

On the other hand we have the testimony of contemporaries that many Germans could not speak English; we have behavior that seems odd for people who could speak English as well as German like mass patronization of German only literature; and we have the results of empirical studies concluding that at least some *second and third* generation German-Americans were monolingual in German.

In other words, a typical argument with Bart.

But this isn't about rationality with him, it's about him knowing that he and his people are special (but of course, not privileged!), not like those people that would otherwise be similarly situated that his party and ideology says should be treated differently. This feeling is the basis of the modern conservative movement and it shapes all the 'conclusions' they come to (and how they come to them).
 

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Mr. W:

OK, you win. Let the history books from this point on tell a story of German immigrants who self-segregated themselves in "Little Germany" neighborhoods in all the cities across the eastern seaboard and midwest, where only German was spoken and tattooed Teutonic street gangs ruled. Those who settled in the countryside, lived a hardscrabble existence of subsistence farms, worked by German serfs, who were not permitted to vote. These farmers never spoke to anyone outside the community, except through hired translators, and made all their own clothing and implements. All these unassimilated Germans plotted to extend the Kaiser's rule over their Englander and Irlander neighbors to bring order to the new Amerikaner Reich.
 

I appreciate Mr. W. spending his time like this but it is depressing that it is as he said in effect arguing with a stand-in of the group now in power. Facts do matter so thanks to Mr. W and Mark for doing their part.
 

Bart is trying to be smart-alec, but as he often does he falls into truth unintentionally. Germans did, like every ethnic immigrant, self-segregated in cities (here you can read about Little Germany in NYC: http://www.lespi-nyc.org/history/kleindeutschland-little-germany-in-the-lower-east-side.html), and, yes, in many of these places English would have been odd to hear English (in Milwaukee in some neighborhoods an odd business or two would hang a sign out front reading "English Spoken Here" because German was so ubiquitous).

These Germans were attacked by Nativists much as Bart and Brett attack Hispanic immigrants today. Their 'saloon culture' and preferences for beer was attacked as part of Prohibition. As Franklin said they were suspect because they came from a nation known for autocracy. Nevertheless, they fought hard to preserve their German culture and language use and were largely supportive of the German government. On the eve of WWI (and of course WWII) they became even more suspect, considered to be sympathetic patriotically and perhaps constitutionally to the evil, brutal 'Huns' and secretly loyal to the Kaiser (and later the 'Ratzis'). Germans were so suspect that things German were renamed (a town called Berlin renamed 'Liberty') and things deemed German were destroyed (daschunds were killed in the streets because they were evil, sneaky 'German' dogs).

"These farmers never spoke to anyone outside the community, except through hired translators, and made all their own clothing and implements."

It's hilarious how you can't grasp this, and it's this quality that makes your 'deductive' thinking so faulty: just as Mexican non-English speakers can find work doing construction, landscaping, wait-staff, etc., work, so could a German non-English speaking tradesperson or farmer. Have you never been to a market in a big, international city? A person hawking their leather made products in such a market need only to know a common word for the price, pointing and gesturing can solve everything else. Have you never seen a Mexican construction crew with one member who knows enough English to get the directions for the many facets of the current job from the mostly English speaking contractor? Are you really going to argue that a farmer needs more common command of a language with those they barter with than a waitress needs to take the orders of thousands of customers? You really need to get out more and expand your mind/experiences.

But thinking outside you and your family experiences is really the entire issue, isn't it?
 

Here's a recent NYTimes article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/opinion/trump-queens-childhood-america.html

"Trump Wants America to Revert to the Queens of His Childhood" Thomas B. Edsall

Then take a look at:

"Queens immigrant population keeps booming" By Tobias Salinger| NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |Apr 02, 2014 | 8:00 PM

I've lived in the Boston area since my birth in 1930 and growing up become aware of so many ethnic groups beyond my very minority ethnic group. I've commented on this before. My older brother, also born here, could not speak English when he started school. He was a fast learner such that I could speak English by the time I started school. On some earlier threads I discussed suspicions during WW II of Italians and Germans in the Boston area, not by me, as somehow we all got along. When I started high school (Boston English High School, class of 47) I became aware of the many ethnic and racial groups in the various Boston neighborhoods, of their foods, their cultures. Boston had its problems with discrimination, but in my childhood here it seemed we all got along. There have been a lot of demographic changes over the years here, but there are still remnants of the old ethnic neighborhoods despite changes. There has been significant intermarriages of various ethnic groups over the years. Once the Irish and Italians were at loggerheads here. But intermarriages solved much of that. Outside of Boston there remain Franco-American Clubs. I could go on and on about this. But the issues raised by this post relate to due process and other constitutional challenges of the Trump Administration. America is an immigrant country and as such has thrived economically, politically and militarily, leading the world towards more democracy. We can all take a bow. I recall the time when Brett's young son put up a comment. Brett explained what happened. Brett also talked of his new family Filipino connections, including Brett's skills at Filipino cuisine. How positive that was in comparison to Brett's relating of his childhood experiences competing with Mexican farm workers pulling radishes. We can be proud of the contributions of the Filipino community with its culture and cuisine as well as such contributions over the years by other ethnic groups. Perhaps we should enjoy the music and dance of all this great diversity and eat well, liberties that were not available to many of our forbears, the very reasons they came to America, sometimes with treacherous journeys such as I learned of from my immigrant parents and relatives, who were able to enjoy life here in America and provide their children with so much that they were deprived of. America will survive Trump.

Back to the constitutional issues, can Trump by executive order or the GOP Congress by legislation override the Constitution's due process and other requirements? How does Internation Law on asylum impact America? So far, Brett and SPAM have proposed their usual "doc-doo process." We're not going back in time, just as Queens will not revert to Trump's childhood days.

(I was hors de combat much of yesterday due to dilation of my good eye but have tried to work through the thread in preparation for today.)



 

Mr. W: just as Mexican non-English speakers can find work doing construction, landscaping, wait-staff, etc., work, so could a German non-English speaking tradesperson or farmer...Are you really going to argue that a farmer needs more common command of a language with those they barter with than a waitress needs to take the orders of thousands of customers?

Today, non-English speakers generally work behind the scenes in construction, landscaping, cooks, cleaning, and factory work where they do not interact with customers.

The only way a non-English speaking waitress can make a living is if her customers all speak her native language.

Obviously, none of these are analogous to business owners like farmers and tradesman who extensively interact with suppliers and customers.

Have you never been to a market in a big, international city? A person hawking their leather made products in such a market need only to know a common word for the price, pointing and gesturing can solve everything else.

Actually, by necessity,these vendors are almost always multilingual. Markets in a big, international city are a good analogy to German city states with which we began this discussion.
 

Without the Anglo-American culture respecting freedom and adopting self reliance, we are no longer America. With such a culture, skin pigmentation is irrelevant.

I'd say that the effort these refugees and asylum-seekers make to get to the border demonstrate a lot of self-reliance and determination to improve one's lot. The immigrants I run into - legal or not, I don't know - work pretty damn hard to eke out a living. The "Anglo-American culture" has no monopoly on valuing freedom and self-reliance.

Multi-culturalism is self-destructive. Why would we want to adopt the culture of nations like Guatemala or any other failing "sh_thole country" from which people flee to come to the United States?

If multi-culturism were self-destructive the US would long ago have destroyed itself. Doesn't the fact that these people are fleeing other countries to come to the US suggest they like it better here? And no, it's not because they are going to collect fat welfare checks. We've done pretty well with people fleeing other places to come to the US.


 

Speaking of International Law, I noted this post at the Legal Theory Blog a few minutes ago:

Jill I. Goldenziel (Marine Corps University-Command and Staff College) has posted Checking Rights at the Border: Detention of Migrants in International and Comparative Law (Virginia Journal of International Law, 2018) on SSRN.

Those interest might check the abstract posted at that blog that also provides a link to SSRN.

Here's another link:

http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=auilr

"INTERNATIONAL LAW-THE IMPACT ON NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONS" by MICHAEL KIRBY

That starts off with contrasting quotes from Justice Kennedy, Justice O'Connor andJustice Scalia.

Does Trump plan to use his new "Space Force" for immigration control in addition to his Mexican border wall, and make the Slar System pay for it? Trump is a bit bit of a futurist perhaps about concern for an alien invasion from space. Perhaps he recently saw "Spacebars" starring Mel Brooks.
 

"none of these are analogous to business owners like farmers and tradesman who extensively interact with suppliers and customers."

Laughable. 'Suppliers and customers' are no more diverse than the customer's that my English-ignorant waitress was.

"by necessity,these vendors are almost always multilingual."

Nope. You don't get out much, I've dealt with such vendors in big cities and they sometimes know about ten English words.

Again, you're just 'supposing' what you think is true (like a good Austrian economist). We have the evidence of studies and contempories to the contrary, as well as fault lines in your 'deductions.' All you have is a mere wish that your ancestors were special.
 

"Obviously, none of these are analogous to business owners like farmers and tradesman who extensively interact with suppliers and customers."

This is especially ignorant. Many, if not most, farmers (and probably tradesmen) only sell to one 'customer.' For example, the farmers in my area sell only to one big corporation (Tyson). They could speak Swahili for what Tyson cares.
 

BD: "none of these are analogous to business owners like farmers and tradesman who extensively interact with suppliers and customers."

Mr. W: Laughable. 'Suppliers and customers' are no more diverse than the customer's that my English-ignorant waitress was.

Your waitress can only work in a community which speaks her native language. Thus, we are back in your alternative history of "Little Berlins" where no-one speaks English.

Can you identify suppliers and customers for your average farm during the German migration into the United States?

BD: "by necessity,these vendors are almost always multilingual."

Mr. W: Nope. You don't get out much, I've dealt with such vendors in big cities and they sometimes know about ten English words.

Apart from markets in Europe, Turkey, Iraq, Saudi, Mexico and the Caribbean, I am pretty much a home body.

They were all filled with multilingual vendors, with Turkey being the most fun.



 

"Can you identify suppliers and customers for your average farm during the German migration into the United States?"

They only need one (and maybe not only that). And as any person who has dealt with another transactor of another language can attest, they don't need much knowledge of the other language.
 

I imagine SPAM in lederhosen in markets as I read SPAM's comments for context, or lack thereof. But back in the days of the Pennsylvania Dutch (actually Germans) how multilingual were the vendors? SPAM projects himself as a worldly traveler in a more modern world in which of course there would be more multilingual vendors what with modern means of transportation, as compared to the horse and wagons of the PA Dutch. Maybe SPAM should make a trip to modern day Queens to observe its markets. Query: Were public schools available to the PA Dutch back then to teach them English?

By the Bybee (expletives deleted, despite Gina), my grandmother who lived into her 90s could not speak English except for a few swear words and to tell my then future bride to be that I was "nice boy;" and neither could her older sister who lived down Dudley Street from us.
 

Well, not a good day for due process.
 

Mr. W:

You have no idea about what you are posting.

Farm suppliers include banks, seed, fertilizer, often water, livestock, sometimes off farm grazing, vets, vehicles, machinery, building supplies, and often specialized clothing.

Farm customers include third party transportation, wholesalers and occasionally direct retail to locals.

Apart from certain isolationaist communities like the Amish, farmers are business people who deal extensively and constantly with the outside English speaking world.

The same applies to tradesman, brewers, etc.

Remember, I am speaking about my immigrant ancestors (the Parlbergs and Asendorfs), from whom I have extensive family history they wrote in perfect English. Furthermore, my inlaws are farmers and ranchers, from whom I learned the basics of the business and to whom my wife and I have made business loans.
 

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The Supremes just delivered a well-deserved slap down of the hypocrite Democrats’ (here and elsewhere) partisan attempt to limit Trump’s exercise of immigration power, which was no different than that exercised by Obama.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
 

"Well, not a good day for due process."

Truth, honesty, and freedom of religion took serious hits too.
 

This from Justice Kennedy's concurrence in Muslim Ban #3"

"The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion and promises the free exercise of religion. From these safeguards, and from the guarantee of freedom of speech, it follows there is freedom of belief and expression. It is an urgent necessity that officials adhere to these constitutional guarantees and mandates in all their actions, even in the sphere of foreign affairs. An anxious world must know that our Government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts."

seems applicable to Trump's Zero tolerance on asylum seekers whom Trump wishes to deprive of due process.



 

"Truth, honesty, and freedom of religion took serious hits too."

"Due process" being used widely so religious liberty would be included.

Ditto evenhanded application of speech and health clinic regulations in the crisis pregnancy case. As Breyer said in his dissent there, "Really."
 

"Farm suppliers include banks, seed, fertilizer, often water, livestock, sometimes off farm grazing, vets, vehicles, machinery, building supplies, and often specialized clothing."

Lol, we were talking about farmers in Franklin's day! Vets, vehicles machinery and specialized clothing indeed!
 

Remember, I am speaking about my immigrant ancestors (the Parlbergs and Asendorfs), from whom I have extensive family history they wrote in perfect English.

Nice that they spoke English but it proves nada, gar nicht. (I bet you understood the last three words of that sentence.)

It's very easy to conduct routine buying and selling in a language you don't speak very well. I've done it and you probably have to. All you need is to know the numbers and the basic terms involved.
 

Mr. W:

You have been citing sources over the first century of the Republic. The mechanization of farming occurred during this period. Change mechanized farming to animal drawn vehicles and plows and the point does not change.
 

"Apart from certain isolationaist communities like the Amish"

As usual, Bart sometimes falls backwards over the truth (the Amish are a great example of an anachronism)