Poking around the family tree of a Fox host

On Monday, on the nocturnal harangue known as "The Five", Fox News Jesse Watters characterized President Trump 's immigration policy this way: "[Trump] wants merit based.This would reduce legal immigration by bringing in the best and the most So we do not bring in the uncle of a guy from Zimbabwe. "

Or the great-great-grandfather of a guy.

Watters is in the United States because his great-great-grandfather Michael Quinn fled the Great Famine in his native Ireland in 1852 and came to Boston. Broken and barely literate, Quinn soon went to Western Mass, where he got a job at a farm in Longmeadow and started a family. But times were tough and he lost three young children to the disease – including two to cholera in September 1865 – before dying of congestion in 1872, at the age of only 42 years old.

Would Michael Quinn be the best and the brightest today? ? It's hard to say, but if you're interested in learning more about the humble beginnings of a conservative talk show host who wants strict limits on immigration, the journalist Globe ] Eric Moskowitz did a little bit of sneaking in his spare time and posted a very interesting Twitter feed.