What did President Goerge Washington do about immigration?

[Michael]

It is for social studies.

[Ellie]

On pages 175-76, it points out that George Washington was an avid supporter of open immigration. He did not mind at all that a competent immigrant might "steal the job" of a native-born American. As Brookhiser details,

"In 1784 George Washington was in the market for a carpenter and a bricklayer. He asked Tench Tilghman, one of his wartime aides, to scour a boatload of Germans that was due to land in Baltimore for the proper workmen. "I would not confine you to" Germans, he added. "If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews, or Christian of any sect -- or they may be atheists." Washington was laying it on for comic effect; he is saying, hire anybody who can put boards or bricks together. But there is no reason to think that if Tilghman had found a Muslim bricklayer, Washington wouldn't have hired him."