Trump's grandparents showed up with no visa, no passport, nothing

[cal04]

https://twitter.com/OccupyDemocrats

[Sanity Claws]

1. His mother was a Scottish immigrant, wasn't she?

Any idea of how she got into the country?

[Angry Dragon]

3. came across with the Mexicans

[Fred Sanders]

4. Two wives were immigrants! As is the current trophy wife from Slovenia. The hypocrisy is monumental.

Melania Knauss-Trump (born Melanija Knavs, Germanized to Melania Knauss; April 26, 1970) is a jewelry and watch designer and former model. She and the American real estate developer Donald Trump married on January 22, 2005. Born in Slovenia, Knauss-Trump became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2006.

[randys1]

2. Hypocrite, thief, liar, and I hear now, gangster.

[Travis_0004]

5. They didn't break any laws, and here here legally

At one point, we had an open immigration policy. We do not have that today, so its not a very good comparison.

[One_Life_To_Give]

6. Castle Garden? Or undocumented entry?

1885 Immigrants would have officially come thru the then equivalent of Ellis Island. Most had health checks and quarantines. Not everyone who attempted official entry was allowed. Some were rejected for cause. That is not quite the same as our current southern border, more like current JFK airport, IMHO.

[spanone]

7. republican politics are rooted in hypocrisy

[virgogal]

8. Things,and laws, change. I wouldn't want to go

back to 1885 --I doubt any of us would.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Not really a good meme. 1883 saw the establishment of the Chinese Exclusion Act which did just

that, excluded Chinese from immigrating to the US. They could not in fact just show up and be let in. 1885, the year Trump's ancestors arrived, was the same year as the Foran Act, or the Contract Labor Act which forbade bringing people to the US under contract to do labor and forbade such persons from entry. This is a reversal of former policy which had at one time encouraged importation of contract labor.
In a way, 1885 is the year the idea of illegal immigration was born, because contracted immigrant laborers who came here after that were not legally present and did have to lie to get in and if found out, they would be ejected.
But even forgetting contract labor, the Chinese Exclusion makes it a bit naff to say we were totally open and anyone who showed up got in.