Part I: Background
“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.”
-- G.K. Chesterton
The aforementioned quotation comes from a 1929 book by British author G.K. Chesterton. As one now “long in the tooth,” as they say, I can fully understand what he meant, especially in light of what we’re seeing with the immigration issue in America. I’m old enough to remember the days when immigration was a highly orderly, purposeful enterprise. Those times are clearly long behind us. I think we would do well to take a look at how things used to be and then consider some things which have resulted in the current debacle.
Given everything being reported today about the efforts at repairing the damage done by the so-called Biden Administration for four years, one might think that this problem is a new one. Actually, this mess is but the most recent chapter in the story of American immigration. It’s important to realize how and when all this began in order to understand that it can’t be solved in one year and, perhaps, not even in the coming three years.
Immigration has a long history in America. For many, many years America permitted people from other countries to come here, but the flow was managed in a sane, rational, responsible way. Over the six decades after Ellis Island opened until it was closed, some 12 million people came to America through its gates. The Democrats threw open the borders in 2021, and during their four years in control of the White House, many more than 12 million crossed illegally into America.
Traditionally, foreigners immigrating into America went through an orderly, disciplined process. They were screened medically and were required to certify that they had been “sponsored” by American citizens who, in turn, would guarantee that the newcomers would assimilate into our culture and find their own, independent way of support. Immigrants were expected to learn English and acquire a trade in order to support themselves and their families. They were never given welfare or any other type of public assistance.
A now famous line is inscribed on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (emphasis added). Notice, it didn’t say “bring me your poor so that we can give them welfare!” And that’s what the vast majority of immigrants to America primarily used to seek: liberty and opportunity.
The problems began at the time when the old Bracero Program ended in the late 1960s. That program was begun during WWII when agricultural workers were sorely needed since so many American men were serving in the military.
The program was effective in providing agricultural labor. It prohibited imported temporary workers from bringing their families with them to America. They had to return to Mexico after the planting or harvest seasons had passed. Bracero was far from perfect, but rather than reform it, leftwing Democrats attacked it and managed to scuttle it.
Throughout the 1970s, guest workers continued to be allowed to enter the country, especially in the agricultural sector. However, they started bringing their families with them. After the field work ceased, they simply stayed in the country. This was the beginning of the lax immigration control which eventually resulted in the catastrophe which has now metastasized almost beyond credulity.
With greatly increased numbers of foreigners residing in America, the Democrats deftly proposed a bargain. In exchange for a “one time” amnesty of roughly 6 million illegals living in America, they agreed to support strict border control and adopt sophisticated technical means for mandatory use by employers to ensure that no illegal aliens would be given employment. This sounded to President Reagan in 1986 as a reasonable solution to a then-growing problem and a long-term fix to the persistent issue. Thus, he was persuaded to sign into law the infamous Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986 – officially the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).
The problem was that after the amnesty to millions of illegals was granted, the Democrats simply reneged on their part of the bargain, i.e. the tightening of border controls and the implementation of the employment verification portion of the law.
The next step in this long march toward where we currently find ourselves came via the passing of a bill advocated and supported by then-president Clinton – the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act which was enacted under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. This odious law ostensibly “simplified” voter registration procedures by requiring state governments to permit people to check a box on their driver license application form in order to be registered to vote.
Sounds reasonable, right? The problem arose in connection with the fact that these forms also contained a box which the applicant was supposed to check stating that s/he was a citizen entitled to vote. In a great majority of states, this provision was never followed up on.
The next wonderful development in this process was a move on the part of Democrats to encourage states to pass laws enabling “undocumented immigrants” (read: illegal aliens) to obtain driver’s licenses. This was ostensibly done to assist law enforcement in processing actions such as accident reports. The reason I attribute this effort to Democrats is that it (coincidentally) ended up allowing unauthorized “immigrants” to secure driver’s licenses in several states which just happen to be run by Democrat officials.
Of the 19 states (and the District of Columbia) currently issuing driver’s licenses to illegals, 18 are “deep blue” states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington. Hardly a coincidence, given the role this has played in facilitating the registration of otherwise unqualified individuals to vote!
But the combination of motor voter and the driver license scam is far from the end of the story. In Part 2 of this article, we’ll explore the lengths to which Democrat politicians have gone to further their cause of supporting illegals as they move from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Additional Resources:
As reported by Douglas Andrews in “The Patriot Post” (January 19, 2026), “What we’re seeing in Minneapolis is both organized and purposeful — organized by the Left and purposefully designed to wreck the United States.
Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer lays this out in his new book, The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon.” Immigration, according to Schweizer, is being weaponized to “kneecap the most powerful nation on earth — or, to put it in more deceptively familiar terms, “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
Schweizer explains that this weaponization “is how foreign adversaries and neighbors like Mexico, or countries like China or like the Muslim Brotherhood, are using mass migration as a political weapon against us” — whether they come from the failed state of Mexico or from Communist China or from Muslim Somalia. Networks of these radicals continue to operate inside the United States … and they are responsible for a lot of the chaos in our streets, e.g. the violent anti-ICE “protests.”
Here’s how one Mexican official, a top aide of leftist Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum, put it in an official 2024 Mexican government report:
“We already know that the Mexican population in the United States reaches 39.9 million. … We Mexicans are reclaiming our territory.”
As Schweizer notes, “You have this alliance between foreign adversaries who want to undermine the United States, and Democrats who domestically see this as an opportunity for themselves to gain a political advantage. . . . That’s why they’re fighting so hard in the streets right now: to prevent deportations.”