In the late 1840s, hundreds of thousands of people, driven by political strife, economic problems, and famine, left Europe for America. They brought their religion, their language, and their customs with them. How did predominantly WASP America respond?
Millions of Americans fretted that the new immigrants could not be assimilated. They were too Catholic, too strange, and too insular to fit in this country. Something had to be done. The result, of course, was the creation of what was popularly called the Know Nothing Party.
So we have been here before. MAGA is not attempting to deport the descendants of the 1840s immigrants; in fact, it considers them to be “legacy Americans.” MAGA is therefore effectively arguing that the current crop of immigrants is fundamentally different in some way from the Irish, German, and Italian immigrants who allegedly would, if unchecked, have swamped our culture. The obvious question is, how? What evidence supports that proposition?