Hard to fathom immigration policy

Hard to fathom immigration policy

America’s past and present immigration policies seem to be based more on politics than practicality. Many of us senior citizens remember the prelude to World War II when European Jewry was becoming alarmed at the Nazi regime’s extreme vocal policies against their Jewish minority.

Many European Jews immediately saw the looming dangers and eyed America as a safe haven to flee to, but were given complicated and voluminous immigration forms to fill out with the result that only a minuscule number of them made it to America before total war broke out.

Even stranger is that back in 1939 a German refugee ship piloted by a sympathetic Captain Schroeder tried to land his boatload of German Jewish refugees at an American port. It never happened as the U.S. Navy forced them back out to sea and back to Germany where most of them would perish when total war broke out.

Contrast that past immigration stance with the one we have today and a strange picture emerges. American politicians now seem to have a laissez faire attitude on illegal immigration. They not only seem to ignore illegal immigration but go on to protect them once on American soil.

Walter Santi

Bloomingdale