My Blog

Blog Post #1

In the book, Deportation Nation, Daniel Kanstroom explains to the reader the two basic types of deportation laws. Deportation is “a mechanism of scapegoating, ostracism, family and community separation, and of course, banishment”, to put it in his words. (Kanstroom, 5) The two types of deportation laws are extended border control and post entry social control.

Internally with the law of extended border control are two various parts. The first part is if a person deceitfully enters the country by either lying about personal information or misrepresents themselves in order to obtain citizenship. For example, if someone lied about their criminal past. The other part would be having a student or working visa and not following the conditions of that document. This would be similar to a person coming over to work for a farmer but instead is not working at all, or working at another job. This law also usually comes with a time limit.

The second type of deportation law is post entry social control, which can sometimes be described as the “eternal guest” or “eternal probation” law. (Kanstroom, 6) This is essentially saying that at any time for any reason, even “long term lawful permanent residents”, can be deported by the government with executive power. (Kanstroom,6) For instance, a Chinese laborer named Fong Yue Ting was deported for not having someone of the white race to support him because of some Anti-Chinese issues our country was having. (Kanstroom, 7)

During times of terror and suspicious is when these laws brought about other laws such as the Alien Enemies Act and Alien Friends Act. These laws are most certainly categorized within the post-entry social control for being until the sovereign power of our government. An example of the Alien Friends Act would be when, in the eighteenth century, a Frenchman named Mederic-Louis-Elie Monreau de St. Mery, was put on a list to be deported even though he was close with people like John Adams. When asked why St. Mery was put on the list, Adam’s reply was “nothing in particular, but he’s too French.” (Kanstroom, 61) Even though St. Mery and his family were given shelter by some friends, him and his family left the country soon after. Another instance of post-entry social control would be the 1662 Law of Settlement and Removal. This law stated that anyone who did not have property or “who for any reason whatsoever “came into a parish in which he had not settlement”” could just be removed without any previous knowledge if they could not prove that they had property. (Kanstroom, 34)

In 1993, former President Bill Clinton made a speech in which he said, “We will make it tougher for illegal aliens to get into the county”. (Kanstroom, 13) During this time it is said that over 2,100 people died trying to cross the border into the United States. Those that did make it over are here as non-citizens and when/if caught, they will be arrested and deported immediately. This is a perfect example of extended border control.

Using these two laws of deportation help us understand the laws that fall in the deportation realm because both are explanations of what being a citizen is. If you are a citizen of this country, whether it be with a visa and you are in the right with the conditions of it, or you are sworn in as a citizen or it is your birthright; you know the terms of which you are in the country. Unfortunately, if you are here by visa or you are here on false terms, our laws say we can, without any reason, be able to deport you from our country.

Works cited:

Kanstroom, Daniel. Deportation Nation: Outsiders In American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Blog Post #2

In chapters 3 and 4 of Kanstroom’s Deportation Nation, he describes a “second wave” of changes and additions to the deportation system. These chapters spotlight on a number of topics from the Scott act of 1888 in Chapter 3, to a focus of rebellion in the western states and the punishment to follow, like the Bisbee Company debacle of Chapter 4. New people, such as Marcus Garvey, were introduced and we learned of how the laws did not work in their favor. The chapters are similar to each other in that they both discuss the strong beliefs of the anti-immigrant mindset of the times.

In chapter 3 we see that the laws that are being written are mainly due to the surge of Chinese immigrants coming to the States for the gold rush. At first the United States welcomed them, but it was soon after that the Chinese started to see violence against them and also discriminatory taxes. (Kanstroom, 98) We see an example of this in the case, People v. Hall, where a white man was sentenced to be hanged for the murder of a Chinese man, but the California Supreme Court revised it because Chinese witnesses shouldn’t have been able to take the stand. (Kanstroom, 99) In the case of Chae Chan Ping vs. United States, we see that Chae was denied admittance back into the States because of the Scott Act that had come into law while he was away, even though he had his valid return certificate. (Kanstroom, 114) Both of these instances follow the theme of these two chapters of law making in order to discriminate against those we didn’t see fit to live among us.

In chapter 4 it does not seem that life is getting better for those who wanted to come into the country and also those who wanted to stay. The disgust of immigrants was rising as the “slacker raids” began to happen. Men that were considered “undeclared aliens” were exempt from the raids and this did not sit well with the rest of the men who were entered into the draft. (Kanstroom, 138) Not only that, but the industrial workers of the Bisbee Company were trying to acquire better working conditions and when those conditions were not met, they went on strike. The Citizens Protection League saw this as a jab at the United States because “strangers” thought that they could affect our country by not producing the metal that we needed. So as punishment they rounded up over 1000 men and took them to the desert for three days before the federal authorities came to deal with deportation matters. (Kanstroom, 142) So I do not believe that this was “refining” of modern deportation laws because the times seem to be held up in whom to discriminate in order to keep up this appearance of a perfect country.

So the similarities between the Chapters are in the different ways we found that we could use the post-entry social control laws to our advantage. We were able to just say you know what; no you were a non-citizen before therefore that gives you no rights when it comes to our decision to deport you. Just like in the case of Marcus Garvey, where the President J. Edgar Hoover followed him and researched him in order to find that one fault in order to bring him to “justice” and deport him back to Jamaica for mail fraud. (Kanstroom, 149)

Works Cited:

Kanstroom, Daniel. Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

Blog Post #3

Blog Post #3

Daniel Kanstroom states at the end of his book Deportation Nation, that “As a 100 plus years social experiment, the U.S. deportation system had caused considerable harm and done little demonstrable good. It is poorly planned, irrationally administered, and, as a model in which to base other enforcement systems, dangerous…In the end, the history of deportation law shows us how integral the removal impulse has been to our nation of immigrants”. (Kanstroom, 243, 246) To say that I agree with those statements would be modest. I say that because of what I have learned in the 6 chapters and other videos throughout the lessons. I have caught my jaw lack at some of the things that our government have thought were a clever idea to put into law. Our Bill of Rights may seem as just a given when born into the United States, but for ‘aliens’ in our country they are just words on a paper. For example, how many times did we need to amend the exclusion laws towards the Chinese; it is as if each one was put there to be harsher and put our message across as “we just don’t want you here”. The United States government, however, made sure that in their Alien Registration Act they covered all their bases if anyone was going to slander them at all, whether they were citizens or not, “knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise or teach the duty or necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone to become a member of or to affiliate with any such association”₁ Again, our country has gone through its ups and mostly downs in the deportation department and we have yet to find a means to an end to help our country balance its current citizens versus its immigrants.

It seems to be a common affair when it comes to the deportation system of the United States. We have made an abundance of laws throughout the years to keep immigrants out of our country, but we don’t really hear a lot about other countries not wanting us in theirs. Namely our change from not wanting Asians in our country because of the fear of domination and violence, to deporting Mexicans back to Mexico because they were taking our jobs, makes the United States seem like a toddler not wanting the rest of the world to play with our brand-new land. This is not to say that we didn’t try to make things like our Statue of Liberty says to welcome people to us. The Braceros program made it so that Mexicans would have a way to come to our country to earn money and stability for their families while helping our farmers find laborers for their land. It is here again that the government took a small step in the right direction and a huge step in the insulting direction. The government would allow Mexicans to apply to the Braceros program but then they also had to strip and be inspected and deloused as they entered the U.S. I cannot imagine how desperate someone would have to be to put themselves through that kind of treatment, the U.S. was in a way paying them for their pride. “In effect, any Mexican in the United States would now be presumed to be, at best, temporary and, at worst, illegal…to be Mexican was to be presumed legally tenuous.” (Kanstroom, 219-221)

Even after all that the program had done for the Mexicans, law makers in the U.S. were getting push back from their citizens to do something about the substantial number of Mexicans coming into the country illegally. Immigration and Naturalization Services had agents out stating things like,” greatest peacetime invasion ever complacently suffered by another country under open, flagrant, contemptuous violation of its laws.” (Kanstroom, 222) So it was no surprise that some citizens held a cold shoulder to anyone wanting to help to legalize some of the “aliens”. The mentality of 1950s was that they would allow the Mexican laborers to work but it was because of the fact that they were illegal that they only agreed because they could pay them however they wanted because they were “fugitives from justice” and for that only reason Mexicans were allowed to work for them. (Kanstroom, 223) It was not until President Harry Truman started to look over past immigration policies that people started looking at our future as a country, full of immigrants that came here for our own freedoms, something we shouldn’t be afraid of. (Kanstroom, 224)

A tremendous change came in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to honor President John F. Kennedy with the 1965 Immigration Act. This Act removed the original quota system and made it a priority to put those with family already here and those with useful skills at the top of the list to be approved for citizenship. During this time, the government was allowing asylum seekers to try and state their case so that they could become refugees of whatever country they left in fear of prosecution under the 1980 Refugee Act. This would have been great but since the judicial system always wants to throw a loop hole in the laws, the asylum seekers were having substantial issues even being heard to state their case of why and who they were running from. They were thrown into detention centers and left there to wait for their trial to begin, but there was also the hope that their fast track deportation hadn’t begun yet neither. With as many issues that had come from the deportation system, during President Ronald Reagan administration, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was initiated and we had hoped that this would begin to help with our immigrant issues. The IRCA was a private organization so that when they were carrying out their duties, those who found themselves illegal weren’t scared of for fear of deportation. The IRCA was there in two types of ways, one in the labor department making sure that employers were following the laws, and also for those seeking legalization who had been illegal since January 1, 1982. So now our government is trying to watch out for everyone, including their citizens. (Kanstroom, 225-227)

So, while I think that the government has failed many times when trying to come up with fair laws towards everyone, I feel like they have tried but when there are so many people with so many different opinions as to who does what in our country, I begin to feel fortunate that I am not in their places trying to make laws to keep everyone not only safe but free to live how they want to.