Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Immigration - A Santorum Personal History

It strikes me as odd how strident Rick Santorum is against illegal immigration given his background as the first generation in his family who was born in America. It seems that it is possible that his grandfather got to America just before (or perhaps not so legally) just after the draconian Immigration Act of 1924 and that his father had to wait until he was 7 years old until he could join his dad. I'm not sure why Rick Santorum talks about 5 years. This immigration act was targetted at Italians and Jews, cutting down Italian immigration from 200,000 per year to 4,000 a year (while increasing immigration quotas from "favored" nations).

I wonder if someone did some real investigating whether they would find out some detail, perhaps embarrassing or perhaps some deep psychological wound, that would explain why Rick Santorum is so unforgiving of people wanting to move to America, despite the roadblocks put up by this generation's bigots. When his father was born, the Italians and Jews were the target of bigots in America. Today it is Mexicans. The target changes, and "legal" means of enforcing the bigotry changes, but fundamental bigotry is still there.

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