One hundred and fifty years ago, the arrival of refugees from Ireland provoked a wave of draconian proposals for closing off access to the United States. The most eloquent rebuttal to these restrictions came from Herman Melville, who had himself recently crewed a ship from Liverpool brimming with immigrants. In his mostly forgotten novel Redburn, he waxed lyrical: “Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they get here, they have God’s right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China.” - newrepublic/article/119021/border-crisis-let-child-migrants-central-america-stay
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:45:52 +0000
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