Re: Patrick Cleburne’s NumbersUSA Timidly Proposes 1924-Style Immigration Cut-Off. Comments Thread Not Timid

From Amy [Email her]

Patrick Cleburne writes

Particularly as the 1924 Immigration Act has been luridly demonized, mainly it seems because a decade later it was inconvenient for the Jews wishing to leave Hitler’s Germany.

Inconvenient? This is the mother of all distortions of history I read in a long time.

Of course the 1924 Immigration act was not responsible for the Holocaust, but it closed the doors to the U.S. to many of the 6 million Jews who, as a consequence, were murdered in Europe.

I can only conclude that your hatred of the Jews clouds your judgement, or your IQ is close to Kamala Harris’s. 

Patrick Cleburne responds: “Your IQ is close to Kamala Harris’s”. Ouch!

“Your hatred of the JEWS clouds your judgement…” NO. Perhaps my love for America “clouds my judgement” as perhaps it also did of those patriots responsible for the 1924 Act.

They put their nation first.

In reality, many Jews were admitted to America in the Nazi years. That includes the proponents of The Frankfurt School whose benefit to their rescuing society is open to serious question.

James Fulford, letters editor, adds: We tried to forestall this by including a link (on the words “it was inconvenient” above) to Charles Bloch’s article: Nicholas Wade Wrong—1924 Immigration Cutoff Not Responsible For The Holocaust, which explains that

 connecting the 1924 cutoff to Jews fleeing Germany is a non-sequitur. In fact, Germany had the largest quota of any country after the 1924 Immigration Act. Jews from Germany were not categorically barred. Indeed, according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum, “thousands of Jews had been admitted into the United States under the combined German-Austrian quota from 1938–1941.”

But apparently some people don’t click on links.

Here’s what I myself wrote, in The (First) Thirty Years War For Immigration Reform, twenty-two years ago on this site:

Of course, this smear is ridiculous. Perhaps the lives of some pre-war refugees might have been saved if there had been no restriction, but this was in no way the fault of the restrictionists. The ”Boston bluebloods“ had opposed the Hun in 1917 and they opposed the Nazis in 1941. And they had no way of knowing in 1924 what Hitler was going to do in the 30’s and 40’s.

Moreover, the plain fact is that, during World War II, everyone in the world would have been better off in the United States. That includes the Allies, the enemy, and even U.S. troops overseas. Is the [Immigration Restriction League] to be blamed for keeping them out?

It would be just as easy to say that immigration policy prevented the immigration of Adolf Hitler, probably the worst immigrant in history, along with thousands of other Fascists, Nazis, and other overseas totalitarians.

It’s nice to think of the U.S. as a refuge from people like Hitler. But it has to be American for that to be true.