My wife's grandmother, Soon Nam Char, was a picture bride. Orphaned in Korea when the Japanese killed her stiff-necked parents, she came to America in the early 20th century as part of an arranged marriage.
My wife's grandfather, who had come to Hawaii from Korea as a contract laborer, picked Soon Nam's picture out of a book and signed a contract committing to work in the sugarcane fields in Hawaii for 13 months to pay her passage.
Soon Nam arrived in a strange country, whose language she didn't speak, to marry a man she had never met.
Ruth Cymber was my chief of staff when I served in the House and Senate. She was born in a relocation camp in Germany after World War II and came to America with her parents, who were Holocaust survivors.
The immigration agent suggested that her family change her first name from Ruchla to Ruth and drop the "knopf" from their last name, Cymberknopf. They did.
Immigration has always been a tough issue for me because my life and the life of the nation have been and continue to be enriched by immigrants.
When the Senate was debating the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, I felt obligated to point out that if I were in Mexico with my two little sons and they were hungry, you would have to kill me to stop me from coming across the U.S. border.
Still, I was committed to dealing with illegal -immigration and the 3.2 million illegal migrants in the country at the time. The problem was that I couldn't see how the legislation could I fail to expand illegal immigration-which it did.
This story is from the January 14, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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This story is from the January 14, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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