Immigration

Strauss & Howe give immigration opposition as consistent indicator of previous Fourth Turnings. Whatever the problem is, having new people entering the country was not going to help fix it. During World War II, Japanese and Italian and Germans were restricted, while during the Civil War the Irish were a problem.Whether or not it's a major problem this time around, it's at least making a difference in how people see the government.

Immigration issues have been around for much of the last 80 years. Is there any reason to think this current situation is worse, or even different? To start, there are protests, and they are being treated as part of the problem. (As opposed to being, for example, superfluous or irrelevant.) There is also the question of whether the President can choose how to handle immigration, given conflicting or unclear laws. Beyond those, there is the fundamental difficulty of dealing with women and children who are in a rough situation, where there doesn't seem to be any good resolution. There does appear to be enough happening here to attribute to the Turning, even if it's not clear which way it will fall - in favor of restrictions applying to this new group, or with them being treated as similar arrivals and not being granted any sort of special status.