The Current Effort to Deny Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants or Spouses Has a Precedent

Conor Friedersdorf, in a piece defending Bari Weiss calling American-born Mirai Nagasu an immigrant, apparently doesn't realize Asian immigrants couldn't naturalize because of racist exclusion laws until 1952. The levels. pic.twitter.com/ObRfTEtOaR

— mtp (@tsengputterman) February 21, 2018

This Conor F. is part of *the* *press*. He writes for The Atlantic, which is a liberal magazine/website. He should know better, or someone there should be schooling him. He doesn’t know that Asian people were denied a path to citizenship from 1868 to 1952 century. Eighty-four.  84 years of (at least some) immigrants from Asia being excluded from citizenship.  In the middle of that long period, people from Asia were prohibited from immigrating.

All the stuff that Trump is talking up about Mexico, or El Salvador, or whatever, is part and parcel of trying to bring back these policies of exclusion and preventing entry.  The fascists know history, and want to repeat this part of it.

Also, during this 84 year period, concentration camps were built to displace Japanese Americans, to destroy the community.  People often say that they lost their property, but, it was the Americans who lost property – the immigrants were not allowed to buy land, due to Alien Land Laws.

Trump and his fascist supporters have been talking about bringing back Alien Land Laws.

I know, a lot of people think it can’t happen, but it can, because it has happened.  We must stop it.