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Trump: Setting Immigration Back 90 Years

September 21, 2016 College of Arts and Humanities | History

Trump: Setting Immigration Back 90 Years

Historian Julie Green unpacks the historical echos in Trump's immigration platform.

Julie Greene | The Baltimore Sun

"Speaking in Arizona recently, Donald Trump not only linked undocumented immigrants to every ill facing the United States, he also stressed the importance of assimilation as a guiding principle of immigration policy. The U.S. should "select immigrants based on their likelihood of success in U.S. society and their ability to be financially self-sufficient," he said.

"After this speech, Richard B. Spencer, young darling of the white nationalists, tweeted: "Trump is returning to the ideas of the 1924 Immigration Act. Immigrants will reflect the racial makeup of the country. #AmericaFirst."

"He may be right. Mr. Trump's language certainly echoed an earlier history of racialized immigration policy when the unassimilable character of some immigrants seemed to threaten American identity."

Read the entire op-ed in The Baltimore Sun.