The Atlantic, February 2, 2017: First, They Excluded the Irish
“The United States has a long history of denying public support to immigrants. Some policies were put into place not too long ago—Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare-reform legislation severely restricted immigrants’ access to benefits, as the Post points out. The country also has a long history of denying entry to immigrants who come from poverty, as the historian Hidetaka Hirota writes in his new book, Expelling the Poor. The language of the Trump administration’s alleged new proposal is not a departure from past policies, but a continuation. And as in the past, the new policy may lead to discrimination, whether implicit or overt.”