My Blog

Blog Post #1

In his work, Deportation Nation, Daniel Kanstroom presents the picture of two separate and distinct types of deportation laws in American history. First, extended border control regulation aims to enforce “the control of territory by the state and the legal distinction between citizens and noncitizens” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 5). There are two types of border control laws. There are laws which “mandate the deportation of persons who have evaded border controls” and laws which “permit the deportation of person who violate an explicit condition on which they were permitted to enter the country (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 5).”

Kanstroom presents the 1782 Georgia law which “prohibited the entry of Scottish immigrants” as an example of an extended border control deportation law. The 1782 Georgia law indicated that any Scottish immigrant be arrested within three days of arrival in Georgia and be held indefinitely until an opportunity to deport were possible (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 32). A second example of extended border control is the Naturalization Act of 1970 which “made naturalization available to any free white person ‘of good moral character’ who, after two years of residence in the United States, would take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 33).Though the definition of “good moral character” is ambiguous and both laws are discriminatory, each law serves as an example of extended border control because they aim to provide a legal distinction between citizens and noncitizens in, as well as, provide a mandate for action against those violating the terms of the law.

The second type of deportation law presented by Kanstroom, which is much more common in American history, is the post entry social control laws. While deportation laws “govern conduct for a specific period of time following the time of admission,” post entry social control laws “proscribe criminal or political conduct within the United States.” Importantly, post entry social control consists of regulations which are not directly connected to the immigration process.

Following fears that the French Revolution might influence an American insurrection, the Alien Friends law was passed in 1798 as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Alien Friends Act gave the president deportation authority over any alien judged to be “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 32). The Act is a clear example of post entry social control law. Deportation of aliens, in this case, was not determined by any factor of immigration and was wholly unrelated to immigration past the point of concerning foreigners. A second example of post entry social control is the practice of “warning out.” “Warning out” is the practice of the forced removed of undesirables, often poor, to their original place of settlement for reasons unrelated to their initial immigration. In effect, the practice controlled the movement of undesirables in the American colonies. As with the Alien Friends Act the law had little to do with immigration but rather focused on the control over foreigners (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 33-35).

Understanding deportation laws using the scope of border control versus post entry social control allows for a philosophical and legal analysis of immigration law and the role of government in creating and enforcing those laws. Border control laws strike at the heart of states sovereignty and illustrate the right of the state to govern movement. Post entry social control is more concerned with social control of an alien population removed from the immigration process. Examining deportation law using this scope allows for the differentiation of two separate systems with separate goals.

Blog Post #2

Daniel Kanstroom, in Deportation Nation, discusses the formation of the modern federal deportation system in Chapter Three and the expansion of the system to include post-entry social control in Chapter Four. Common themes found in Chapters Three and Four include the shift of an immigration system largely controlled by the states to a system under federal control. Court cases and federal legislation, such as Chy Lung v. Freeman and the Immigration Act of 1882, fueled the shift from state control to federal control of the immigration system. More commonalities exist with the consideration of the treatment of Chinese and Mexican immigrants and an immigration system defined by racism. Regulations such as the Scott Act, which was directed towards a single race of people, and American sentiments towards Chinese and Mexican immigrants, set a tone of racism in dealing with immigration matters. Differing themes within the work do exist. Most notably, the shift from a system largely consisting of extended border control regulation and practice was transformed into a system of post-entry social control. Largely all of the legislation included in Chapter Three, including the Immigration Act of 1891 and the Geary Act of 1892, were of the extended border control type. As the reader continues into Chapter Four a clear shift in theme occurs where extended border control gives way to more post-entry social regulation. In all, these examples show a clear “expansion and refinement of modern deportation law” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 131)

The first common theme examined is the shift of the immigration system from state control to federal control. Through much of the 19^th century immigration and the power of deportation was regulated on a state or local level. Chy Lung v. Freeman, in 1876, tested the states power over the federal government. Citing the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the Supreme Court held that Congress had the authority to regulate immigration and that states did not have the power to regulate immigration. This is pointed to as marking “the death knell for most state immigration control” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 94). A continuation of federal control over state control continues with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1882 which sought to exclude and deport “a variety of persons, including convicts, ‘idiots,’ ‘lunatics,’ and persons unable to care for themselves” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 94). The Chy Lung case and the Immigration Act of 1882 mark the transition from state power to federal power over immigration.

Another common theme which must be examined is the racial motivation behind the exclusion and deportation of both Chinese and Mexican immigrants based solely on race. Kanstroom describes the Chinese as “prodigious workers,” though if one examines the language of the debates surrounding immigration legislation it is easy to discern a racist motivation (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 100). Kanstroom quotes Terence Powderly, US Commissioner General of Immigration from 1897 to 1902, as stating: “American and Chinese civilizations are antagonistic; they cannot live and thrive and both survive on the same soil.” This racist examination of culture is emblematic of the immigration laws and strategy of the period. Struggles with Chinese immigrants in the West and “fears about radicalism among immigrants” helped to fuel the passage of Scott Act which “prohibited the entry of all Chinese laborers, forbade the issuance of return certificates for those who were here and wished to travel, and cancelled all currently outstanding certificates” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 112-113). Mexican immigrants experience almost exactly the same treatment as the Chinese decades into the 20^th century. Kanstroom cites a Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce member as saying: “agricultural work was of a type to which the oriental and Mexican due to their crouching and bending habits are fully adapted” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 156). The Immigration Act of 1917 was directed towards Mexican immigrants with the application of “a head tax and a literacy test to Mexican immigrants” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 158). White American sentiment towards Mexican and Chinese immigrants held those immigrants as mere forms of labor rather than as human.

In contrasting Chapters Three and Four of Deportation Nation, the obvious trend of extended border control expands to post-entry social control over a matter of decades. Much of the legislation included in Chapter Three is of the extended border control type even though the legislation may seem discriminatory. If the Immigration Act of 1882 and the Geary Act of 1892 are both examined, they reveal a trend towards extended border control. The Geary Act provided to “extend the exclusion of Chinese laborers” and force such laborers to register and be able to prove their immigration status (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 116).The Immigration Act of 1891 provided for the removal of persons who should have been excluded at entry. If this is contrasted to the 1917 Immigration Act and the 1919 Volstead Act the trend toward post-entry social control is more apparent. The Immigration Act of 1917 provided for the removal “of otherwise legal resident aliens” who violated certain criminal laws (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 133). The 1919 Volstead Act was passed to combat “rum runners” near the border (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 135-136). From the passage of the Immigration Act of 1917 and the Volstead Act of 1919 a clear differentiation is apparent when these pieces of legislation are compared to earlier immigration laws.

The developments in Chapter Four show an “expansion and refinement of modern deportation law” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 131). This “expansion and refinement” results from extended border control policies during the late 19^th century to policies of strict social control in the early 20^th century. The shift from state control to federal control of immigration regulation along with the racial sentiments of the time period helped to stimulate the “expansion and nrefinement of modern deportation law” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 131).

Blog Post #3

Daniel Kanstroom, in Deportation Nation, presents the argument that “[a]s a 100-plus years social experiment, the U.S. deportation system has caused considerable harm and done little demonstrable good. It is poorly planned, irrationally administered, and, as a model on 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, Deportation Nation, pg 243, 246). Kanstroom’s thesis is established through the development of two major themes in the history of deportation; the first major theme being the construction of an immigration system consisting of greater post-entry social control over the enforcement of extended border control variants of the law. Through the shift away from early extended border control regulations such as, the Immigration Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1891, and toward stricter enforcement of post-entry social controls as seen with federal crime fighting in the 1920s the first major theme of Kanstroom’s work is demonstrated. Furthermore, Kanstroom continues to establish his thesis with an examination of the racial component and motivation of immigration regulation. His multiple examples of undesirable races of people from around the world, including Chinese and Mexican immigration, serve to illustrate the true discrimination behind the nation’s modern immigration system.

Kanstroom provides a careful examination of the differences between extended border control regulation and post-entry social control regulation and enforcement. Extended border control regulation is made up of laws which “mandate the deportation of persons who have evaded border controls.” Post-entry social control largely consists of regulations which “permit the deportation of person who violate an explicit condition on which they were permitted to enter the country” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 5). In the United States there was a clear shift at the turn of the 20^th century away from a system largely influenced by extended border control regulation to a system of post-entry social control. Examples of extended border control include the Immigration Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1891 which sought to limit the entry of “undesirables.”

J. Edgar Hoover is quoted as saying “People no longer respect respectability… You must be either with or against the government. There is no middle ground… Citizens of this country must become enemies of crime” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 162). Through a war on crime in the 1920s which extended into the 1930s, the federal government asserted more control than ever over the immigration system and, specifically, deportation. According to Kanstroom, “the number of federal criminal prosecutions rose from 55,587 in 1920 to 87,305 in 1930” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 163). At the same time Kanstroom also describes deportation as being “one of the main goals of the work of the immigration agency in the early 1930s, the numbers rising from 2,762 in 1920 to 19,426” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 164). The Wickersham Commission was formed to “undertake ‘a searching investigation of the whole structure of our Federal system of jurisprudence’” and in doing so considered the US immigration system’s “arbitrary and harsh enforcement practices that had caused hardship to individuals and the separation of families.” It Commission’s report also highlighted a “lack of judicial review and administrative disregard of well-established norms of due process” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 163).

A second major theme in the development of Kanstroom’s argument is the consideration of race involving US immigration law. The foundations of the immigration system are marred by racism. Consider the 1782 Georgia law which “prohibited the entry of Scottish immigrants.” This early example sets the stage for regulations which arbitrarily target specific racial groups depending on the current mood of the general population with little to no due process. Kanstroom argues that this process of enforcement of racist immigration laws “extend(s) back to the legitimating theories of the brutal removal of the Cherokee and other American Indians from their land and to the laws governing thousands of fugitive slaves, captured and forcibly sent back to their masters from the late eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth century” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 7). US immigration policy has served as “the application of majoritarian power – through legal structures and with the use of force – against a particular group of people, largely identifiable by race or nationality, to compel their removal from one place to another” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 7).

The theme of exclusion on the basis of race alone is extended through the consideration of the US policy of Chinese exclusion. The policy of Chinese exclusion was supported by the federal government through multiple examples of legislation and court decisions; however, it is important to examine the language behind the formation of these laws and decisions. Take the testimony to Congress by Judge Hastings of California: “My opinion is, and I speak from the highest authority, that the Chinese are almost another species of the genus homo… They vary from the Aryan, or European race; their divergence is very wide. I think they vary so much that the offspring of the Chinaman, united with the American race would be unfertile, or would be imperfectly fertile… if not mules” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 99). Kanstroom cites countless examples of racist rhetoric which reduce the migrant to a class genetically and fundamentally separate immigrants from US citizens. The pattern of racism does not end with Chinese exclusion. It continues to stand out with every new large expansion of migration through Mexican migration and continues today with the Syrian refugee question. Aylett Buckner observed that exclusion laws serve to perform “the last funeral rite over the dead body of the false and non-sensical dogma of government policy that ‘all men are created equal’” (Kanstroom, Deportation Nation, pg 113).

Kanstroom presents the argument that “[a]s a 100-plus years social experiment, the U.S. deportation system has caused considerable harm and done little demonstrable good. It is poorly planned, irrationally administered, and, as a model on 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, Deportation Nation, pg 243, 246). Given the history of a shift from border protection to social control and the overwhelming involvement of race and racism in consideration of the immigration question, it can only be held that Kanstroom’s argument is fair and accurate.