Posted on

#31: In the 21st Century Immigration Has Become a Major Issue in the US and the World

As the 21st Century dawned, the U.S. was attacked by foreign terrorists in New York and Washington using hijacked aircraft as weapons. Wars in the Middle East in response to those attacks led to a refugee crisis that has engulfed much of Europe. In the U.S., a crisis has been building on our southern border for an even longer period. There has been a steady focus on immigration over the last two decades.

The National Museum of the American People will be monitoring and marking events such as these, and events we don’t now anticipate, in future years as each move has a role in defining the American People.

In the wake of the 9/11 attack the U.S. passed the Patriot Act that broadened terrorism-related criteria for deportation and broadened inadmissibility rules for noncitizens. In addition it established a foreign student monitoring program.

A year later the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act streamlined electronic border control systems for those entering and leaving the country. In 2002 the Department of Homeland Security was created and established three new agencies to monitor and protect our borders: the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 added more reasons to not admit and to deport noncitizens and increased penalties for alien smuggling. The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 criminalized violations of federal immigration law.

In 2006 the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill but the House refused to consider it. The issue of immigration reform has been simmering since then. But Congress did enact the Secure Fence Act that called for more than 700 miles of reinforced fence to be built along the Mexican border in places where there had been a high level of drug trafficking and illegal immigration. In 2006, 6,000 National Guard troops were sent to the Mexican border to assist Border Patrol agents.

After Congress failed to pass an immigration reform bill in 2012, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy to allow those entering the U.S. before the age of 16 to apply for a work permit and two-year protection against deportation. In 2014 President Obama took executive action to delay the deportation of 5 million undocumented immigrants after meeting various conditions and he broadened the DACA program.

In 2017, as one of his first acts in office, President Trump moved to impose new restrictions on immigration from several Muslim-majority countries in conflict regions. Starting in 2018, and continuing today, the President’s effort to build a significant border wall along the Mexican border has emerged as a major national issue.

When the National Museum of the American People opens it will mark all of our nation’s significant actions to determine who the American People are … and who they will be.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

Posted on

#26: 19 US Organizations Focused on Refugees, Immigrants and Immigration Reform Support NMAP

President George Washington and most of the founders of the United States envisioned the new nation as a haven for those escaping religious persecution and other forms of oppression in their homelands. In that vision they laid the seeds for America becoming the leading nation of the world economically, militarily, scientifically and culturally.

Today as the US and the world struggles with immigration and immigration issues, it is important to remember the history and impact of our nation opening – and closing — its doors to refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants from the nation’s founding through today. Future blogs will deal with immigration laws that affected the story about the making of the American people.

In recalling that history, the National Museum of the American People is proud to have the support of a broad range of organizations that focus on refugees, immigrants and immigration reform. They include:

In telling the story about the making of the American People the National Museum of the American People will be a home for all of these organizations and a beacon for the nation.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People

Posted on

#22: Happy Presidents’ Day Weekend!

  1. George Washington — Can trace his family’s presence in North America from his great-grandfather John Washington who migrated from England to Virginia in 1694.
  2. John Adams — Born in Massachusetts in 1792, John Adams was a 4th-generation descendant of Henry Adams who immigrated from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1636.
  3. Thomas Jefferson — His ancestor came from Wales to Virginia.
  4. James Madison — His paternal family line is of English descent.
  5. James Monroe — His paternal great-grandfather immigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century.
  6. John Quincy Adams — Like his father John, he is a descendant of Henry Adams.
  7. Andrew Jackson — His genealogy shows that he descended from Richard Jackson (1505-1562) from England.
  8. Martin Van Buren — His ancestry was Dutch.
  9. William Henry Harrison — The Harrison family line comes from England.
  10. John Tyler — The Tyler family came to American from England.
  11. James K. Polk — Robert Pollock in 1659 emigrated from Ireland to Maryland accompanied by his wife and children. “Polk” was derived from Pollock.
  12. Zachary Taylor — He was a descendant of King Edward I of England, as well as Mayflower passengers Isaac Allerton and William Brewster.
  13. Millard Fillmore — His maternal side migrated to the United States from England in the early 17th century.
  14. Franklin Pierce — Thomas Pierce, an ancestor of the family, migrated from England to the US in the 17th century.
  15. James Buchanan — The Buchanans were Scotch-Irish; in 1783, James, Sr., emigrated from Ireland.
  16. Abraham Lincoln — The Lincoln family came to the United States in the 17th century from England.
  17. Andrew Johnson — His paternal side of the family descended from England.
  18. Ulysses S. Grant — Grant has English, Scottish and Irish lineage.
  19. Rutherford B. Hayes — Hayes is of English and Scottish descent.
  20. James A. Garfield — Garfield was born of English ancestry.
  21. Chester A. Arthur — His father was Scotch-Irish and his mother was of English and Welsh descent.
  22. Grover Cleveland — He is a descendant of ancestors from England.
  23. Benjamin Harrison — The Harrisons originate from England.  
  24. Grover Cleveland (See 22)
  25. William McKinley — The McKinleys were of English and Scots-Irish descent.
  26. Theodore Roosevelt — The Roosevelts were all descendants of Claes van Roosevelt, who was a part of the original Dutch immigrants who settled in New Amsterdam in the 1640’s.
  27. William Howard Taft — The first known ancestor of Taft came from Ireland and he also has some English lineage.
  28. Woodrow Wilson — Woodrow Wilson was the son of an immigrant mother from England, and the grandson of immigrant grandparents from Ireland and Scotland.
  29. Warren G. Harding — In the 17th century Warren G. Harding’s paternal side descended from England.
  30. Calvin Coolidge — The Coolidge family migrated to the United States in the 17th century from England.
  31. Herbert Hoover — Hoover (the family’s original name was Huber) was of German-Swiss and English ancestry on his father’s side and of Irish-Canadian ancestry on his mother’s side.
  32. Franklin D. Roosevelt — Franklin D. Roosevelt’s family history dates back to Claes van Roosevelt, the Dutch immigrant who brought the Roosevelts to New York City in the early 1600s.
  33. Harry S. Truman — His ancestry was predominantly English, with a few German, French and Scottish lines.
  34. Dwight D. Eisenhower — The Eisenhower family migrated to the United States from Germany.
  35. John F. Kennedy — The Fitzgerald family was from western Ireland. Between 1846 and 1855, they migrated to America to escape the devastating potato famine. JFK was the first Irish-Catholic President.
  36. Lyndon B. Johnson — Johnson was of English, German and Ulster Scots ancestry.
  37. Richard Nixon — The Nixon family immigrated to the United States from northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
  38. Gerald Ford — Ford is a descendant of Philip King, who emigrated from England to Philadelphia around 1730.
  39. Jimmy Carter — Thomas Carter, Sr. in 1637, came from England to Virginia.
  40.  Ronald Reagan — He was 50 percent Irish, 25 percent Scottish and 25 percent English.
  41. George H. W. Bush — The Bush family is primarily of English and German descent. The Bush family traces its European origin to the 17th century.
  42. Bill Clinton — Clinton has Irish ancestry from both parents and traces of PresidentEnglish, German and Ulster Scots ancestry.
  43. George W. Bush — (The same as 41).
  44. Barack Obama — Obama’s father was from Kenya and a member of Kenya’s Luo ethnic group. Obama’s mother is of Irish and English decent.
  45. Donald Trump — On October 7, 1885, Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German, bought a one-way ticket to America.

This blog is about the proposed National Museum of the American People which is about the making of the American People. The blog will be reporting regularly on a host of NMAP topics, American ethnic group histories, related museums, scholarship centered on the museum’s focus, relevant census and other demographic data, and pertinent political issues. The museum is a work in progress and we welcome thoughtful suggestions.

Sam Eskenazi, Director, Coalition for the National Museum of the American People