Being anti-immigrant was not always a Republican Party virtue

The reports of families being torn apart as ICE agents take mothers and/or fathers away from their children tear at the hearts of anyone who has compassion to understand that what is happening is an outrage.  People whose only crime is the desire to find a better life, to embrace the hope offered by a woman in a harbor holding a torch and with these words from Emma Lazarus in the base,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

are being removed as are those who have committed what is at best insignificant misdemeanors, while DREAMers face deportation for foolish youthful mistakes.  The deportation program that was supposed to remove "bad hombres" has quickly become the "round them up and get them out whether they could be considered "bad hombres" or not.  While various voices have risen up and spoken out against these outrageous and unfair deportation policies, other voices have remained silent, most notably those voices in the Republican Party.

Perhaps that is not surprising.  Perhaps that is to be expected from a political party whose Presidential candidate stirred up the voting base with anti-immigrant speeches.  Perhaps that is to be expected now that the candidate is President.  But anti-immigration was not always a Republican Party virtue.

In 1855, Abraham Lincoln, who would become the first Republican Party President, wrote in a letter to Joshua Speed:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

The Know-Nothing Party were anti-immigrant and gained political power in some States.    In their party platform of 1856, they stated that Americans must rule America; and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all State, Federal and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others. They also called for "A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and excluding all paupers,and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no interference with the vested rights of foreigners."

Abraham Lincoln could have decided that he not only wanted to change his own views on restricting immigration and naturalization but also try to influence the Republicans Party in Congress to enact legislation to restrict immigration and naturalization.  Irish immigrants not only joined the Democratic Party and voted against Republicans but also were pro-slavery.  But Abraham Lincoln held fast to his belief that immigration must continue, that immigrants must be welcomed and nothing must stand in the way of naturalization.

The Republican Party platform of 1860 stated "That the Republican party is opposed to any change in our naturalization laws or any state legislation by which the rights of citizens hitherto accorded to immigrants from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired; and in favor of giving a full and efficient protection to the rights of all classes of citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home and abroad."