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Date:         Sat, 23 Jan 1993 03:13:46 -0500
From:         Username was LODEESEN <LODEESENJ@ADMINB.RFERL.ORG>
Subject:      Re: introduction and Zoe Baird controversy

Marc, on immigration--way back in the sixties I was Vice Consul in Belo
Horizonte, Brazil, and one of the things I had to do was determine the
suitability of applicants who wanted to emigrate to the US.  On the one
hand there were some extremely stringent rules, far moreso than the ones
today, on the other hand the consular official had unlimited latitude in
his right to refuse, and could not be required by anyone to issue a visa
if he personally thought, without proof, that the applicant did not meet
the criteria.  Our immigration laws were to put it mildly highly peculiar.
A couple of years before, when I was an entering officer, we all were
taught about the application of the "Asian-Pacific Triangle" provision,
something most of us had heard about in college but on which apparently
none of us had focused in real terms.  At that time an applicant who was
by "blood" more than half from an ethnic group that came from the
geographical area which is created by placing a traingle covering most of the
Pacific Ocean and all of Asia, that individual, no matter where he was born,
could not apply to come into the United States as a resident of the country
of his birth, as could all other nationals, but only as a carrier of the
genes of the Uzbek, Pathan, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Burmese, etc. nation.
It was so damned weird that my entire class of 27 said that we simply would
not enforce it--and remember, this was not a rebellious group, we were called
the "Quiet Generation".  We then were given the pleasure of a lecture from
someone from INS who said that he understood perfectly and that we had every
right not to enforce it, though, of course we would have to give up our
commissions since we could hardly expect Congress to employ us when we were
in open rebellion.  What did we do?  Well, as I said, we were the Quiet
Generation.  Oh, there was not only a hideous racist component to the
concept underlying the policy; there were real practical limitations.  Whereas
other people from the Western Hemisphere could come in without any quota and
most European quotas were undersubscribed, quotas for "Chinese persons" were
filled well past the year 2000 (40 years ago) and the date kept getting moved
further into the future as illegal immigrants managed to get their status
converted one by one.  Uh, I'm really trying to focus on the worst aspect of
it, but it was also true that it was really only the Northern European
quotas which were undersubscribed, reflecting a "grandfather" point of some
kind.  Fortunately, the Triangle was shortly thereafter dropped and I never
had to test my conscience.
  The issues for me:
it was unquestionable that the law I was asked to enforce expressed the will of
the elected representatives of a people and embodied a principle without which
no nation can have any degree of sovereignty, that it has the right to determine
who may enter to stay.
it seems to me unquestionable that no elected representative today would
publicly defend what was then the law of the land, and that those who would
defend it privately could probably be counted on the fingers of one (well,
maybe two?) hand(s).
 it continues to seem to me entirely proper that we should be able to legislate
to limit numbers or exclude individuals as we see our national interest.  Surely
no one feels that we should be compelled to accept everyone who chooses to live
here, particularly when one considers how much more each one of us burdens the
taxes of each other one of us, whether or not we find gainful employment.  But
I continue to be concerned that there have to be, for a country like ours, some
values expressed when making those determinations which come closer to the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights than to the Asia Pacific Triangle.
  If there were once men who could pass that abomination, are there similar
such things which we are doing today, for which we have reasonable explanations
(the migrant worker is better off with work than with none) which will seem
as ludicrous to the next generation as did what I experienced seem to mine?
  (I was also expected to ask applicants if they intended to earn any portion of
their income through prostitution--that we were supposed to ask both men and
women was perhaps a sign that we were getting less sexist even back then?  I
don't know of anyone who followed the letter of the law on that part of the
questioning.)
  Would someone like to start a list of things which might seem reasonable to
the legislature today because they exist, but will be universally recognized
as abominations 40 years from now (to repeat myself--and I'm on line and so
cannot go back to delete previous lines.  Sorry)
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