To America. According to a recent article in The Irish Times: ``Panic had set in
by the winter of 1846/47. People risked winter voyages across the
Atlantic on unsanitary, unsafe `coffin ships.' ''
The article continues: ``People were placed in quarantine stations,
or held onboard ships docked at ports.''
``Refugees experienced violent and racist reactions. Liverpool,
Glasgow'' . . . ``Montreal, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia sought
unsuccessfully to restrict entry'' of the Irish. A lot of this sounds familiar to me today when we discuss the Muslim
ban that the courts have blocked and which motivated thousands of
Americans to go to airports to demand that the United States honor its
visas and honor its commitment to refugees, or as the House Judiciary
Committee meets today, to punish children for fleeing for their lives. Roughly 32 million Americans trace their roots to Ireland. That is
about 10 percent of the U.S. population.
Keywords matched
visas Refugees refugees