Buster E. Husa
Hello, My name is Buster Husa and i am from Sacramento California. I am currently residing in Donghae South Korea in the Gangwon-do Province. I will be here for a total of two to three years. I love more then anything to travel and take road-trips all over the US as well as the world. I lived in Seattle Washington for three years and consider it my second home. My educational goal is to become a history teacher and work with Educationally challenged kids.
Kanstroom argues that there are two different types of Deportation laws that exist in modern America. These laws can be traced back to the colonial era and still dictate and control modern immigration and deportation in modern America. These two types of laws are most commonly referred to by Kanstroom as, “Extended Border Control and Post-Entry Social Control” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg5).
The first, Extended Border Control, as Kanstroom says, “Implements basic features of Sovereign power” by the control of territory by the government as well as the power to designate people as either Citizens or Non-Citizens; or for lack of a better term, “Illegal Aliens” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg5). This type of border control has two very distinct variants. First, is the ability to deport those who’ve evaded or entered the country unlawfully. This also allows for the deportation of those who’ve entered the country by fraud or false representation of one’s self. The second part of this type of deportation law is that of deportation of persons who violate an explicit or certain condition on which they were granted entrance. One of the examples given by Kanstroom is that of a foreign student in the country. He says, “a student studying must maintain a full course load or a person with a work permit must work for a specific company” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg5). If they do not maintain or abide by these standards, it is lawful grounds for deportation under Extended Border Control.
The second type of Border Control Law that Kanstroom argues is Post-Entry Social Control. This, in Kanstroom’s opinion, is far stricter and unjust then even the Extended Border Control. This type of law incorporates not only Extended Border Control laws, but also laws without time restraints. Most immigration and deportation laws only apply to you during your waiting time to gain citizenship. When you have acquired citizenship, these laws should no longer apply to you; however, Post-Entry Social Control laws still do. Kanstroom puts it best when he refers to this as, “Eternal Probation or an Eternal Guest” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg6). This leaves the feeling on immigrants that they are never truly “Citizens” but will always be a guest in the residing country. If a law has been changed however, you are now a citizen, and you happen to have broken that law when you were in the immigration process and you can retroactively be deported for crimes that were not crimes when you committed them. This is perhaps the most unjust act that is allowed by this type of law.
There is no better example of Post-Entry Social control the that of the1795 and 1798 Alien Act’s. The Alien Enemies Act was a perfect example of Post-Entry Social Control. If you were a lawful abiding citizen of the America’s, and say you were an immigrant from France or Spain. If at any point during your lifetime the US was at conflict with your country of origin, you lost all rights and could be detained on the grounds that you could possibly be a spy or be helping your mother or home country. According to Kanstroom, “all native citizens, denizens or subjects of the hostile nation…. shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as illegal aliens” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg55). This meant that even if you had citizenship and resident status, you were not safe and could still at any moment be considered an illegal alien again. I believe that the most insane part of this law is that it is still a standing law today in modern immigration and deportation policy.
The type of Post Entry-Social Control laws also made laws like the Naturalization Acts of 1795 and 1798 grounds for fear and unjust treatments. If you had just recently gained citizenship because you had lived in the Colonies for the five-year requirement put forth by the Naturalization Act of 1795. You now had the possibility of losing your rights as a citizen and even your citizenship when the Naturalization Act of 1798 went into effect, which extended the required time to become a citizen to fourteen years. The Post-Entry Social Control law gave the government power at any time to take away your rights and deport you and your family. This type of law made it increasingly hard to ever feel safe and secure if you were not born in your country of residence.
We see examples of Extended Border Control in the Palmer Raids. According to Kanstroom, these raids where led by the man in which they are named after, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg1). The Palmer Raids where a massive undertaking to remove people who were considered “Foreign Radicals”, as Kanstroom put it (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg1). This raid was against people who under the Extended Border Control Policy were not considered citizens or legal residence. This law allowed them to be trialed and deported without a legal hearing or counsel because these were rights only offered to legal residence. Since they were considered “Foreign Radicals” they had no rights under the US legal system.
A massive second example of Extended Border Control would be the Acadian Deportation on September 5th, 1755. According to Kanstroom, “These were people from many different backgrounds, some from France, Brittany and Normandy who founded a colony called Acadia in modern day Nova Scotia” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg43). These settlers where extremely prosperous on their own for over 150 years before the Policy of Extended Border Control directly affected them. These settlers did not identify as British but rather their own separate principality; and according to the video in lesson two, did not agree or consent to be ruled over by British colonial rule (“The Acadian Deportation”, Lesson Number 2). They saw themselves as rather independent and self-governing. According to Kanstroom’s definition of what Extended Border Control is, “Control of territory by the state and the legal distinction between Citizen and Non-Citizen” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, Pg5), this gave the English Colonies all the authority needed to consider the Acadians as neither Citizens or legal holders of land they currently resided on. This led to a massive Deportation of the Acadian settler’s and an occupation of their holding by the colonist.
The two lenses used to view Deportation laws in the modern-day US are in my opinion crucial and necessary. Both lenses can be seen in the perfect example of the video, The Toughest Jobs in New York City (The Toughest Job in New York City, Lesson 2). Many foreign workers fear working the dairy farms in New York state due to the harsh deportation laws and the deportation force known as ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Many fear deportation because of unlawful entry or fraudulent entry which allows them to be deported under the Extended Border Control Policy. What is even worse is the fact that even legal citizens who work these farms fear deportation and harassment due to the stipulations and regulations granted by Post-Entry Social Control. This gives the government the right to deport a legal immigrant for even the most minor of infractions or even petty crimes committed before attaining citizenship.
In my opinion, it would be extremely hard to fully understand the injustices and unlawful treatment of immigrants without these two forms of deportation lenses. They make it clear and precise and give a great example as well as informative explanations of the unjust, corrupt, and unchecked power the government uses to make decisions and assert authority over people’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of their happiness.
Through reading chapters three and four of Kanstroom’s book, I have come to agree with his belief that the events in these chapters and the laws that were enforced at this time, not only built upon, but also expanded the earlier deportation laws from chapters one and two. Both of these chapters have the same theme in common of exclusion and fear. Both chapters describe in detail, older laws that are either rewritten or added onto.
The first law and article that is completely connected and stood out to me was the Page Act of 1875 and the 1925 article by Edwin E Grant. This article which coined the term, “Scum from the Melting Pot” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 134), is refers to the same standards used to describe the people being excluded from entry into the US by the Page Act. It was referring to the, “exclusion of convicts and prostitutes” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 93) that were denied entry in 1875. Those years apart, the feelings about deportation, and the removal of certain people was just as strong in 1925 as it was in 1875.
The Immigration Act of 1882, which stated that certain people including, “Idiots, lunatics and persons unable to care for themselves” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 94), should be removed and returned to their home nations. This law was the foundation for the 1903 laws that John Turner was forced to battle against. In 1903, Josh Turner a “British Union leader and anarchist” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 136) was arrested and held at Ellis Island in New York. The 1903 law prohibited the entry of, “Any person who is opposed to all organized government and anyone affiliated with organizations that target or speak out against organized government” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 136), or as we would call them today Anarchist.
The Geary Act from chapter three, adds on even more strict requirements to Chinese Immigrants already dealing with the stipulations put on them by the Exclusion Act of 1882. The Geary Act required Chinese Immigrants to, “bear the burden of their legality” and if they could not prove it, they were subject to deportation (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 116). Certain Acts just clearly added onto one another such as the Naturalization Act of 1906. This act just added to the list of people who were already excluded in the Page Act. It now includes, “crimes of moral turpitude” such as thief’s or prostitutes (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 135,125).
A few of the differences in the two chapters deals mostly with the people who were targeted by the racist unfair laws of the time. Chapter three mostly deals with Chinese or people of Asian Ancestry. In chapter four we take a closer look at the laws that effect Hispanic or Mexican immigrants. A large amount of laws passed and mended in chapter four deal more with deporting or arresting people who were against government and establishment (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 136). This was true for a list of influential people at the time including Marcus Garvey, Emma Goldman, and Peter Frank. All of whom were either professing anarchist, or wrongly accused of anarchist like behavior.
I also believe that the Immigrants that had been rounded up in the Bisbee Deportation would have met with the same fate as that of Fong Yue Ting court cases. If the Immigrants who had been rounded up in the Bisbee Deportation (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg142) had been given the opportunity to appear before a court, they would have dealt with the unfair decisions made and the outcome of the Fong Yue Ting cases. Because both situations were dealing with immigrants, they would have had no rights in our court system. Kanstroom put it best when he said, “If taken literally, it means that aliens and legal residents have no constitutional rights in deportation proceedings” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 119).
I agree that all the laws or acts enacted in chapter four, are either meant to build on or add to already existing laws of the previous years. I believe that the laws required change to deal with the mass growing population of immigrants, but also to deal with different races of immigrants. Hispanics were not subject to numerical quota laws like those from Asia, but new laws were enacted to monitor and stem the flow, such as the Immigration Act of 1917; this act made it mandatory for Hispanic immigrants to pass a literacy test as well as pay a head count (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 158). So, I believe that some laws were changed and some were created to deal with different races and situations as well a geographic location of the immigration taking place.
Let me start by saying that there have been few if any things that Kanstroom has either said or expressed an opinion on, that I have not completely agreed with. That being said, I could not agree more with his opinion and idea the, “100-year social experiment that is the US deportation system” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 243) has had a massive and almost always negative effect on the US. The planning, ideas, enforcement of those ideas and the model from which our deportation policy is built on is completely flawed.
Let’s go back to the ideas that started a flawed system of deportation. We can first look at Kanstrooms ideas of two types of border control, Extended Border Control and Post Entry Social Control (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 5). Both of these types of controls where founded and have paved the foundation for the negative and always racial laws that followed. They also gave birth to events like the Palmer Raids. This was one of the first actually process of rounding up large groups of people for deportation. As Kanstroom puts it, it was against “Foreign Radicals” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 1). This is a prime example of how the US system of deportation started off on the wrong foot. People rounded up in these raids were not given any rights or the ability to defend themselves. Kanstroom put it best when he quoted a document from the time that states it was a, “continued violation of the Constitution and the Laws by the Attorney General at the time” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 1).
Citizenship in the States started out as a free venture. However shortly after, there would be laws that would put stipulations and unfair and unjust rules or required beliefs as requirements for citizenship. This would start with the Plantation Act of 1740; this law gave people the chance to become citizens, but with extremely racist and unfair restrictions. Kanstroom states that these were the following requirements, “you had to be non-catholic, reside in any colony for at least seven years, had to have received the sacrament in a protestant church, swore allegiance to the king of England and profess a belief in Christianity” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 25). For people who know about why people came to the colonies to escape religious persecution and start fresh, these demands seem rather backwards coming from people who left England for this same reason. At this point, there are now restrictions that disqualify people from entrance or gaining citizenship status.
The acts and laws that would follow would build on these already established dangerous and unethical laws. Few acts could be seen as more unethical and dangerous then that of the Acadian deportation of September 5th, 1755. According to Kanstroom the Acadians where, “settlers from the provinces of Northern France, Brittany, Normandy, Picardy and Poitou and they settled in modern day Nova Scotia” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 43). At the time, the colonies where primarily British and they feared, “the potential of dangerous French communities in their midst” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 43). This ultimately lead to the mass deporting and uprooting and of this entire group of people. This was allowed to happen because of another idea at the time of “Inhabitant vs Transient” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 35). This idea expressed that there was a major difference between a contributing member of a community who owns land or a business or a “Inhabitant” and a person who was either dependent on the government for their lively hood, did not have any ties or property or business in the community, or a “Transient”. This idea and class system for people still exist today. People are viewed to be in either one or the other categories. They are either treated with respect as upstanding members of the community or seen as less than or not belonging in a community or social situation.
Many laws that would build off of exclusion and fear would soon follow, laws such as the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed the government to restrain any person of the ethnic group that we as a country were at conflict with (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 55). Laws such as the Alien Friends Act, which build on the unjustness of the Alien Enemies Act, this gave the President the power to deport any alien he saw fit (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 56). The following Sedition Act would improve on these unjust laws and make it even harder for aliens to vote (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 60).
The next step in this system would then start to move towards the exclusion and specific expulsion of ethnic groups as a whole. Starting with the Immigration Act of 1864, which only allowed Chinese immigrants under the “Credit Ticket” system (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 93). This would lead to other acts and laws that would continue the racial exclusion of the Chinese. This could be seen best in the rules for the Scott Acts of 1888. These acts completely excluded any person or persons from China from being allowed entrance or to be allowed to return to the US if they had left for any reason (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page113). No better example of the effects of this act can be found then that of Chae Chan Ting. He was denied entrance to the US after leaving to go visit China, he was separated from his family and could not return despite having lived in the US and having a family residing there (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 113).
Following laws and acts would continue to be passed out of fear and prejudice. There would be other factors that were taken into consideration such as WWI, WWII, and The Great Depression. Though modern laws can be seen as moving in the right direction, such as the 1965 Immigration Acts. This act was a huge movement in US history that was the stepping stone in US immigration, which was the centerpiece in the Civil Rights Initiative (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 225). Many laws were passed with what might be seen as good intent, but did not end up being completely so. Laws such as The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which was considered a “Carrot and Stick” act (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 226). The “Stick” was sanctions against employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants, that were required to complete forms and attest under penalty of perjury that the persons where authorized to work in the US (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 226). The “carrot” was that people who had lived in the US since January 1st, 1982 who could apply and possibly gain legal citizenship; however, if you were denied you would be deported (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 227).
It is Kanstrooms belief that laws, especially those that deal with deportation, do not leave room for what he calls “Descretionary Decision” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 231). This most accurately means that very little of the proceedings and decisions made about deportation have any positive forms of discretion. Kanstroom says, “a rough pragmatic definition is simply, the power to make a choice between alternative courses of action” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 231). Kanstroom discuses three types of discretion: prosecutorial, ultimate, and interpretive. Prosecutorial is what he describes as Agency Interpretive Discretion (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 236). Ultimate Discretion is, “The power to grant an adjustment of status is a power to dispense mercy” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 233). Last is Interpretive Discretion, which is “procedural interpretive discretion” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 237).
I have come to completely agree with Kanstrooms believe of this system being a “100-plus year social experiment that has caused considerable harm and done little to no demonstrable good” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, page 243). As I have learned about all the laws and acts that have come into play and have been passed, I have come to my own conclusion that is started out as a rather racist and excluding system and has continued to be so. The foundation of our deportation laws was constructed unfairly and with many flaws. Consequently, they have been built on and “improved on” in extremely similar ways. I still believe today that our laws and the process that the laws are enforced need to be reconstructed and redefined. They need to be able to have the ability to use discretion and take into account basic human rights and morality.
