My Father is a Fox News-aholic and absolutely will not shut up about the USA border with Mexico. His singular mantra, to avoid explicitly sounding like a racist, is "I just want them to come over legally, like they did at Ellis Island".
Not only do I think this is a shitty argument, I'm not so sure it's grounded in facts about the protocols there to begin with.
I'm looking for a contrast between how immigration was done back then, specifically the New York entry, vs now along our southern border.
by 15volt
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Oh I’ve got the perfect book for you.
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America by Mae M. Ngai
It’s very much an academic work, but is still accessible without much prior knowledge. The book charts the history of the creation of the legal category of “illegal alien” in American history and how it’s deeply tied to changing ideas of race. It directly contrasts the treatment of illegalized migrants from Europe and Mexico during the 19th and 20th centuries. I wrote a paper in grad school on migration between Texas and Mexico and this was one of my major sources
The book was written in 2004, so it’s not as useful for super current events, but it’ll give you historical context to better analyze current issues