titan said:
Hubert J. Farnsworth said:
Another thing. Many libs love to say the old "we are a country of immigrants" line. There is a huge difference between today and the old days. In the old days, people came over and had to figure it out on their own. They weren't taken care of by the government. Today, the taxpayer is housing them, feeding them, taking care of their medical expenses and God knows what else.
True. The incentives were the opportunities and the lack of a rigid class structure like in the lands they were leaving behind, not any hand-outs. In fact if anything they had to deal with a certain unfortunate neglect and hardships. Exploitation was a problem too.
Also somewhat new is the whole importing for votes.
We actually aren't a nation of immigrants. At least not in one sense. I've posted this before.
We are currently at peak foreign born citizens in this country. Around 15%. Our peak before now was around 1890s. In 1965, before the Democrats changed immigration laws, we were at 5% of the population being Foreign Born.
This is all PEW research numbers. Not some conservative talking points memo.
We started as a nation of Colonists who fought and won liberty to create an independent country. Yes, in one sense people who migrate from one part of the world to another are immigrants, but colonists that migrate from one territory of their country to another territory of their country aren't immigrants in the sense of what we are dealing with now.
This is what bothers me about the progressives talking points about "nation of immigrants". No doubt immigration has been a big part of our growth in 250 years. But as you and others have already noted. It's a completely different context.
In the first 150 years of the country we also did not deal with the same level of intentional birthright tourism. No European countries have unconditional birthright citizenship like the U.S. does. Very few developed countries have unconditional birthright citizenship anymore. U.S. and Canada are the last ones and even Canada is not nearly as unconditional as ours.
So it's a different ballgame. And if the ballgame does not change the percentage will rise even further and what the progressives say about our history, which is a lie, will become a self fulfilling prophecy.
When you do include the birthright citizens of illegals and legal immigrants, it has accounted for 79 million new citizens in this country since the 1965 immigration law. It has been 55% of our population growth. Again, all according to PEW research. With current immigration policy and birthright citizen policy, it will account for 88% of our growth over the next 50 years.
This is not how the United States grew in its first 200 years. It is a lie for anyone to suggest this.
