Before Muslims It Was Catholics

Ken O'Brien

Since Donald Trump put forth his proposal that Muslim immigration into the U.S. be put on indefinite hiatus, much has been said about it being a unique and unprecedented watershed in American political history.

Never before, it is repeatedly claimed, has religion been a basis for restricting access to the liberties enjoyed by other immigrants.

The reality, however, is that it is not all that different than the experience of Catholics over the past 200 years.

A wave of anti-immigrant sentiment occurred after the huge migration of Irish Catholics into the U.S. during the potato famine of the mid-19th century.  Continued immigration caused the Roman Catholic population to grow rapidly even in this hostile environment. In 1784 there were only 30,000 Catholics in America but by 1820 this number grew to over 300,000. Petitions from the northeastern states to Congress, asked Congress to pass laws limiting the new immigrants’ right to vote.