Passports Quotes



There were millions of refugees in Europe trying to escape the Nazi’s. When France fell and collaborators established the Vishey government, the French began rounding up Jews, Gypsies, and others for the concentration camps. They could escape France only if they had a transit visa from some nearby country. Salizar, the Portuguese strongman, currying favor with Hitler, prohibited the issuance of transit visas to Jewish refugees. Some unethical diplomats would only issue visas if large bribes were paid. Sousa Mendes, a devout Catholic, had seen all the desperate refugees in the streets of Bordeaux and decided to issue transit visas despite his government’s orders. He issued 30,000 taking no payments at all and saved tens of thousands of lives. Salizar investigated and demanded an explanation. Sousa Mendez was fired and was not even allowed to practice law. He died in poverty. Later he was posthumously awarded his country’s highest medal and a stamp was issued in his honor. See {67378}.


The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward Tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were The open borders position may sound new and radical, but it is simply a call for the return of lost liberties. When the Statue of Liberty was erected in 1886, most of the world’s borders could be freely crossed without passports. Passport requirements had sometimes existed before and were still in place in backward tsarist Russia, but the more liberal governments of advanced European nations regulated migration, as modern democracies regulate speech, only rather lightly and in exceptional cases, if at all. Comprehensive restrictions on international movement, which almost everyone today regards as a normal and necessary government function, are really an innovation of the twentieth century, which emerged as liberalism gave way to nationalism and socialism in the wake of World War I. Although the reasons for border control were often explicitly racist—such as the national origins quotas of the 1924 U.S. Immigration Act—the restrictions were also motivated by bona fide national security concerns, as well as a desire to protect native wages and welfare states from immigrant competition and foreign dependents.


Most Americans do not realize that for most of Amrcan history there has been open borders with little or no restrcition on immigration. These that there were tend to be rembered becuse of the populism, nativism and unrest taht went with them.


Kent’s left wing views were reasons that even his non-political works were not exhibited by many institutions and government exhibits. At the height of the Cold War, Kent had arranged an exhibit of his art to travel around the Soviet Union. However, the State Department, knowing his intention, refused to issue a passport for him to leave the country. However, they could not stop the art work from being sent or Kent from suing the Government. When the Supreme Court ruled that Kent or any other American Citizen was entitled to a passport, he traveled to Russia, caught up with his art work, and donated the exhibit, 80 paintings and many more graphics, to “The People of the Soviet Union.”