What Would Chester Arthur Do? Immigration

(Presidential Rankings will be done tomorrow.)

In honor of Chester Arthur Awareness Day, a new feature begins! What would (President) Do?

Today we examine what Chester Arthur would do about immigrants, specifically Mexicans.

Chester Arthur's administration was the first to pass a general immigration law. In 1882, it excluded people in poverty, felons, and crazy people.

Congress at his time passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, preventing Chinese from immigrating into the US for a 20 year period. Arthur vetoed. Congress revised the bill to be a ten year period, and then it was renewable every decade. Arthur signed this version of the bill.

Clearly, Arthur doesn't have a problem with enacting laws that prevent some people from entering into the United States. The first law excluding paupers, criminals, and the insane doesn't too much apply to the Mexicans. However, it can be assumed there are criminals in Mexico, as well as poor people, and insane people. These groups, Arthur would likely try to legislate away. We know from experience that illegal immigration happens anyway and making it illegal for these groups to enter the United States would do little to nothing. Most Mexicans are coming over because they could be considered paupers anyway.

Arthur was not an initiator in the Chinese Exclusion Act, and at first vetoed it. But he was convinced to sign a watered-down version. As a result, it could be assumed that if the country has enough anti-Mexican sentiment to get a bill passed through Congress, Arthur would sign it as long as he didn't feel it was too strong or against any previous judicial or foreign relations decisions.

That's how the Gentleman President would handle it. The question becomes, would you vote for a candidate who would handle immigration in this way?