I've been thinking about all these kids coming to our border, alone, it's pretty strange, isn't it?

Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island
And no, we didn’t just send them packing.

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It’s hard to say exactly how many of Ellis Island’s child migrants were unaccompanied, but a leading historian says they were in the several thousands. National Archives

An unaccompanied child migrant was the first person in line on opening day of the new immigration station at Ellis Island. Her name was Annie Moore, and that day, January 1, 1892, happened to be her 15th birthday. She had traveled with her two little brothers from Cork County, Ireland, and when they walked off the gangplank, she was awarded a certificate and a $10 gold coin for being the first to register. Today, a statue of Annie stands on the island, a testament to the courage of millions of children who passed through those same doors, often traveling without an older family member to help them along.

Of course, not everyone was lining up to give Annie and her fellow passengers a warm welcome. Alarmists painted immigrants—children included—as disease-ridden job stealers bent on destroying the American way of life. And they’re still at it. On a CNN segment about the current crisis of child migrants from Central and South America, Michele Bachmann used the word “invaders” and warned of rape and other dangers posed to Americans by the influx. And last week, National Review scoffed at appeals to American ideals of compassion and charity, claiming Ellis Island officials had a strict send-'em-back policy when it came to children showing up alone.

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Col. Helen Bastedo posted bond for 13-year-old Belgian stowaway Osman Louis, February 1921. Augustus Sherman/National Parks Service

That’s not true, according to Barry Moreno, a librarian at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and author of the book Children of Ellis Island. The Immigration Act of 1907 did indeed declare that unaccompanied children under 16 were not permitted to enter in the normal fashion. But it didn’t send them packing, either. Instead, the act set up a system in which unaccompanied children—many of whom were orphans—were kept in detention awaiting a special inquiry with immigration inspectors to determine their fate. At these hearings, local missionaries, synagogues, immigrant aid societies, and private citizens would often step in and offer to take guardianship of the child, says Moreno.

In Annie’s case, her parents were waiting to receive her; they’d taken the same journey to New York three years before, looking for work. But according to Moreno, thousands of unaccompanied children came over without friends or family on the other side of the crossing, many of them stowaways. Moreno doesn’t know of an official count of how many children were naturalized this way, but he says it was fairly common. And he can point to at least one great success story, that of Henry Armetta, a 15-year-old stowaway from Palermo, Italy, who was sponsored by a local Italian man and went on to be an actor in films with Judy Garland and the Marx Brothers. “He’s one of the best known of the Ellis Island stowaways,” Moreno says.

But wait, there’s more!

it wasnt so crowded here back then and those immigrants had a work ethic.

Huh? You’ve never seen an Hispanic person working, is that what your saying?

PS, Google Carlos Slim

No shit.

Immigrants take jobs away from Americans.

And yet, they ALSO don’t have a work ethic.

fuck me…the right never makes sense

What color was they?

1 Like

Score.

Wow, “several thousands” during the whole time that Ellis Island was open. Several thousand probably walked across our border last week.

I see you miss the point. This is the point

Are unaccompanied minors a problem we’ve had before?

YES

But then when don’t you miss the point?

I still say that the parents are totally negligent and have no business being in this country. The kids should be put up for adoption.

Well, that’s just retarded.

But what do I expect from a conservative?

Yes Flannel it would be so much more responsible for the parents to make their kids stay home so they can be pressed into street gangs and/or killed on the street in front of their home. Just so your Coal Mining buddies can have a steady supply of affordable cocaine.

they come here for welfare, not to work. why do hispanic people hate their children?

Nobody can afford that around here. Besides, why is what happens in their shithole countries our responsibility?

It’s simply too expensive to allow this much immigration into this country; the current safety net was designed for a more stable environment. Perhaps if goobermint workers were to agree to cut their wages, benefits and pensions by 50% to 75% this would be more doable. It wasn’t long ago when there were 60 students per classroom. Wages went up because it was affordable then, it no longer is.

Many of you would rather shoot arrows at me rather than to think about this problem realistically. The truth is that this situation is unsustainable. and change is coming whether you like it or not.

Why do working class people need to sacrifice under your plan, why don’t American CEO’s cut their own pay so there only making 20 or 30 times what their employees make, instead of hundreds of times what they make?

Two different issues. They make way to much but taxing their butts off wouldn’t last to long.

obushma would use the revenue to buy more fighter jets.

Uh, it’s Cawngress that buys the jets that no one wants.

oh… so the president can no longer veto a bill… i see.

link?