* Leading with the chin. *
* By: Larry Walker, Jr. *
Mitt Romney argued haphazardly, in the January 26th GOP Debate, that he is pro-immigrant, because his father was born in Mexico. Ah, so that’s it. He shouted, “Mr. Speaker, I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico…” That little proclamation was worse than his implication that Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts somehow help create jobs in America. When I heard the former, my first thought was, ‘what does that have to do with being pro-immigrant’? And upon hearing the latter, I laughed out loud.
Was Romney’s father a Mexican immigrant who waited in a long line to cross the U.S. border “legally”? Well, not exactly. I believe Mitt’s grandparents sprinted across the border twice; once as felony fugitives of the United States government, and the second time to escape a band of Mexican marauders. So it sounds more like a matter of self-deportation followed by an act of forced-deportation than anything else.
Frankly, I would have countered Mitt with, “And why don’t you explain to us all exactly how your father came to be born in Mexico, since you chose to go there?”
And what could Mitt say?
I mean, come on! When we think of American immigrants, we think of men and women who journeyed from afar seeking liberty, and a better way of life. But that’s not exactly the story of the Romneys.
Actually, Mitt Romney’s father George was born in a Mormon colony in Chihuahua, Mexico. This may mislead one to the assumption that his parents were down there doing some kind of missionary work when he was born, right? But, that’s not exactly the way it went down. So how did Mitt Romney’s father come to be born in Mexico?
The Romneys wound up in Mexico due to an act of self-deportation from the United States. And although it may be true that the Romneys immigrated from the U.S. to Mexico in the 1800s, fleeing as fugitives and likely forfeiting their rights to U.S. citizenship in the process, it would be false to imply that his father was ever an immigrant to the United States. That is, unless the Romneys actually did forfeit their rights to U.S. citizenship. And you know what that would mean.
The fact is that when Mitt Romney’s great-grandparents fled the U.S. for Mexico in the 1800s, they were actually “felony fugitives” of the United States government. And when they returned to the United States in 1912, they were running for their lives from Mexican Revolutionaries, who also despised the practice of polygamy. One could make the case that the Romneys re-entered the U.S. illegally, more so than that his father was a bona fide legal immigrant.
How Self-Deportation Works
The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act was a federal enactment of the United States Congress that was signed into law on July 8, 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln. The act was designed to target the Mormon practice of plural marriage and the property dominance of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Utah Territory.
In 1882 the Edmunds Act, also known as the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882, was passed by the United States Congress replacing the Morrill Act. This was part of what by then was a 20 year struggle by the US government to curb the LDS practice of plural marriage in Utah Territory and other locations in the American West. Among other things, the law made the practice of polygamy a felony and disenfranchised polygamists. As a result, over a thousand Latter-day Saint men and women were eventually fined and jailed. Some were sent as far away as Michigan to fulfill their terms.
The Edmunds Act not only reinforced the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act but also revoked polygamists’ right to vote, made them ineligible for jury service, and prohibited them from holding political office. Wow, that’s deep!
The Edmunds Act was later replaced by the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887. The new act prohibited the practice of polygamy and punished it with a fine of from $500 to $800 and imprisonment of up to five years. It also dissolved the corporation of the LDS church and directed the confiscation by the federal government of all church properties valued over a limit of $50,000. The act was enforced by the U.S. marshal and a host of deputies.
So to be straight up about it, Mitt Romney’s great-grandparents were polygamous Mormons who fled with their children from the United States to Mexico because of the federal government’s opposition to polygamy. Mormon genealogical records, among the most detailed and complete of any religion, show that two of Mitt Romney’s great-great grandfathers, Miles Romney and Parley Pratt, had 12 wives each. His grandparents, American born Gaskell Romney and Anna Amelia Pratt, immigrated to Mexico with their polygamous parents as children, were married in 1895 in Mexico, and lived in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Mitt’s father George was born on July 8, 1907.
When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, the Mormon colonies were endangered in 1911–1912 by raids from marauders. The Romney family then fled Mexico and returned to the United States in July 1912, leaving their home and almost all of their property behind. Mitt’s father George would later say, “We were the first displaced persons of the 20th century.”
Hogwash! The Romneys weren’t displaced, but were rather the first self-deported American citizens of the 19th century, and perhaps the only such in all of U.S. history. That is to say, they self-deported from their native country, after refusing to follow U.S. law for nearly two decades. And then were subsequently run out of Mexico by a group of well armed patriotic Mexicans. So if anything, the Romneys were self-displaced.
Is this why Mitt Romney is so passionate about the idea of self-deportation? I mean after all, out of every other presidential candidate, he would know a little more on this topic than anyone else, and certainly more than he lets on. I would contend that if Mitt Romney is somehow pro-immigrant, it has nothing to do with his legacy, but rather all to do with saying what voters seem to want to hear. But all this voter wants to hear is the truth.
That’s right, lie to us Mitt. For we must defeat Obama at all costs – even if that means deceiving and destroying the Conservative movement in America in the process. Will someone please stand up and challenge this walking disaster before it’s too late? When your opponent leads with the chin, that’s when you go for the jugular. And someone needs to do just that, because it’s starting to smell like 2008 all over again.
I honestly can’t get with Mitt Romney’s background anymore than I could ever get with the current abandoned anchor-POTUS’. If Romney is the best that conservatives can produce, good luck to you all with that. I would rather stake my last dollar on the real deal, even if it means defeat. I don’t know where you stand, but for me it’s principle over politics.
“When a man becomes a citizen of the United States under the Constitution, he cannot cease to be a citizen, except by expatriation for the commission of some crime by which his citizenship shall be forfeited.” ~ Sen. Jacob Howard
Also see:
Polygamy Prominent in GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney’s Family Tree
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