{"id":13898,"date":"2017-03-01T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/?p=13898"},"modified":"2023-08-03T14:37:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-03T21:37:25","slug":"americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2017\/03\/01\/americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s mass deportation system is rooted in racism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/08\/Americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/08\/Americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"A person shows the side of their cheek and neck with tattoo that reads: Mexicano.\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n      <div class=\"image-caption\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--description\">\n\n    \n  A Mexican who was recently deported from the U.S. in Tijuana, Mexico. REUTERS\/Edgard Garrido\n\n\n<\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>America\u2019s mass deportation system is rooted in racism<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n    \n          <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span>Kelly Lytle Hernandez Associate Professor, History and African-American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles<\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">March 1, 2017<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" style=\"line-height: 32px;\">\n      <span class=\"title\">\n        Share\n      <\/span>\n                        <a class=\"a2a_button_copy_link\" 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visually-hidden\">Email<\/span>\n          <\/a>\n                  <\/span>\n  <\/div>\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n \n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <p>(This article was originally published on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0on February 26, 2017.)<\/p>\n<p>A rowdy segment of the American electorate is hell-bent on banning a specific group of immigrants from entering the United States. Thousands upon thousands of other people \u2013 citizens and immigrants, alike \u2013 oppose them, choosing to go to court rather than fulfill the electorate\u2019s narrow vision of what America should look like: white, middle-class and Christian.<\/p>\n<p>Soon a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings could grant unrestrained power to Congress and the president over immigration control. More than 50 million people could be deported. Countless others might be barred from entering. Most of them would be poor, nonwhite and non-Christian.<\/p>\n<p>This may sound like wild speculation about what is to come in President Donald Trump\u2019s America. It is not. It is the history of U.S. immigration control, which is the focus of my work in the books\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Migra-History-Border-American-Crossroads\/dp\/0520266412\">\u201cMigra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol<\/a>\u201d and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/City-Inmates-Conquest-Rebellion-1771-1965\/dp\/1469631180\">\u201cCity of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Historically speaking, immigration control is one of the least constitutional and most racist realms of governance in U.S. law and life.<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h2>Made in the American West<\/h2>\n<p>The modern system of U.S. immigration control began in the 19th-century American West. Between the 1840s and 1880s, the United States government warred with indigenous peoples and Mexico to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/invasionofamerica.ehistory.org\/\">lay claim<\/a>\u00a0to the region. Droves of Anglo-American families soon followed, believing it was their\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/resource\/cph.3b52137\/\">Manifest Destiny<\/a>\u00a0to dominate land, law and life in the region.<\/p>\n<p>But indigenous peoples never disappeared (see Standing Rock) and nonwhite migrants arrived (see the state of California). Chinese immigrants, in particular, arrived in large numbers during the 19th century. A travel writer who was popular at the time,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/stream\/visittoindiachin00taylrich#page\/354\/mode\/2up\/search\/debased\">Bayard Taylor<\/a>, expressed the sentiment settlers felt toward Chinese immigrants in one of his books:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe Chinese are, morally, the most debased people on the face of the earth\u2026 their touch is pollution\u2026 They should not be allowed to settle on our soil.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520029057\">discriminatory laws<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ucpress.edu\/book.php?isbn=9780520256941\">settler violence<\/a>\u00a0failed to expel them from the region, the settlers pounded Congress to develop a system of federal immigration control.<\/p>\n<p>In response to their demands, Congress passed the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ourdocuments.gov\/doc.php?flash=true&amp;doc=47\">1882 Chinese Exclusion Act<\/a>, which prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country for 10 years. The law focused on Chinese laborers, the single largest sector of the Chinese immigrant community. In\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fjc.gov\/history\/home.nsf\/page\/tu_exclusion_doc_3.html\">1884<\/a>, Congress required all Chinese laborers admitted before the Exclusion Act was passed to secure a certificate of reentry if they wanted to leave and return. But, in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.fjc.gov\/history\/home.nsf\/page\/tu_exclusion_doc_4.html\">1888<\/a>, Congress banned even those with certificates from reentering.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.theconversation.com\/files\/158359\/area14mp\/image-20170224-22981-34v6zz.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theconversation.com\/files\/158359\/width754\/image-20170224-22981-34v6zz.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Illustration, \u2018How John may dodge the exclusion act\u2019 shows Uncle Sam\u2019s boot kicking a Chinese immigrant off a dock.\u00a0<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"http:\/\/hdl.loc.gov\/loc.pnp\/ppmsca.25972\">Library of Congress<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Then, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was set to expire in 1892, Congress passed the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/loveman.sdsu.edu\/docs\/1892GearyAct.pdf\">Geary Act<\/a>, which again banned all Chinese laborers and required all Chinese immigrants to verify their lawful presence by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/calisphere.org\/item\/4d59c4cfdf78dc205399f14a1f0e53a1\/\">registering<\/a>\u00a0with the federal government. The federal authorities were empowered by the law to find, imprison and deport all Chinese immigrants who failed to register by May 1893.<\/p>\n<p>Together, these laws banned a nationally targeted population from entering the United States and invented the first system of mass deportation. Nothing quite like this had ever before been tried in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese immigrants rebelled against the new laws. In 1888, a laborer named Chae Chan Ping was denied the right of return despite having a reentry certificate and was subsequently confined on a steamship. The Chinese immigrant community hired lawyers to fight his case. The lawyers argued the case up to the U.S. Supreme Court but lost when the court ruled that \u201cthe power of exclusion of foreigners [is an] incident of sovereignty belonging to the government of the United States\u201d and \u201ccannot be granted away or restrained on behalf of anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Simply put,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/130\/581\/case.html\">Chae Chan Ping v. U.S.<\/a>\u00a0established that Congress and the president hold \u201cabsolute\u201d and \u201cunqualified\u201d authority over immigrant entry and exclusion at U.S. borders.<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4>Chinese exclusion cases<\/h4>\n<p>Despite this loss, Chinese immigrants refused to comply with the 1892 Geary Act, submitting themselves for arrest and risking both imprisonment and deportation rather than registering with the federal government.<\/p>\n<p>They also hired some of the nation\u2019s best constitutional lawyers. Together, they swarmed the courts with challenges to the Geary Act. In May 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its first deportation case,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/149\/698\/case.html\">Fong Yue Ting v. U.S.<\/a>\u00a0and quickly ruled that deportation is also a realm of \u201cabsolute\u201d authority held by Congress and the president. The court wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe provisions of the Constitution, securing the right of trial by jury and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishments, have no application.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, the U.S. Constitution did not apply to deportation. Immigration authorities could develop practices to identify, round up and deport noncitizens without constitutional review.<\/p>\n<p>It was a stunning ruling even by 19th-century standards. So stunning that three of the justices issued scathing dissents, arguing that the U.S. Constitution applies to every law enforced within the United States. As Justice Brewer put it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cThe Constitution has potency everywhere within the limits of our territory, and the powers which the national government may exercise within such limits are those, and only those, given to it by that instrument.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But such dissent held no sway. Six years later, the U.S. Supreme Court tripled down on immigration control as exempt from judicial review. In that 1896 ruling,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/163\/228\/case.html\">Wong Wing v. U.S.<\/a>, which was issued on the same day as the court upheld racial segregation laws in its infamous\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/163\/537\/case.html\">Plessy v. Ferguson<\/a>\u00a0decision, the court held that the Constitution does not apply to the conditions of immigrant detention.<\/p>\n<p>By 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court had granted Congress and the president nearly unrestrained power over excluding, deporting and detaining noncitizens, both at U.S. borders and within the national territory. To date, they have used that authority to deport and forcibly remove more than\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.upenn.edu\/pennpress\/book\/15653.html\">50 million people<\/a>\u00a0and ban countless others from entering the country. Most of them are nonwhite, many of them poor and a disproportionate share non-Christian.<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4>Making America great again<\/h4>\n<p>Over time, Congress and the courts placed several limits on what is allowable in immigration control. For example, the\u00a01965 Immigration Reform Act\u00a0prohibits discrimination on the basis of \u201crace, gender, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.\u201d And several court\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov\/datastore\/uploads\/immigration\/immig_west\/E.pdf\">rulings<\/a>\u00a0have added a measure of constitutional protections to deportation proceedings and detention conditions.<\/p>\n<p>But, in recent weeks, Trump and his advisers have tapped into the foundational architecture of U.S. immigration control to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/politics\/la-live-updates-9th-circuit-arguments-judge-rebuke-administration-claim-that-1486683892-htmlstory.html\">argue<\/a>\u00a0that the president\u2019s executive orders on immigration control are \u201cunreviewable\u201d by the courts. As Trump\u2019s senior advisor Stephen Miller\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2017\/feb\/12\/trump-administration-considering-narrower-travel-ban\">put it<\/a>: The president\u2019s executive powers over immigration control \u201cwill not be questioned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov\/datastore\/opinions\/2017\/02\/09\/17-35105.pdf\">Feb. 9<\/a>, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit turned down the administration\u2019s \u201cunreviewable\u201d argument regarding the so-called Muslim ban. But Trump\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2017\/01\/25\/presidential-executive-order-enhancing-public-safety-interior-united\">immigration enforcement order<\/a>\u00a0still stands. This includes a provision that subjects even those unauthorized immigrants who are simply suspected of crime to immediate removal. It also denies many of the immigrants who unlawfully cross our borders the due process protections recently added to deportation proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>If implemented as promised \u2013 that is, with a focus on \u201cbad hombres\u201d and the U.S.-Mexico border \u2013 Trump\u2019s immigration plan will exacerbate the already\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nyupress.org\/books\/9781479843978\/\">disproportionate impact<\/a>\u00a0of U.S. immigration control on Latino immigrants, namely Mexicans and Central Americans. U.S. immigration may no longer target Chinese immigrants, but it remains one of the most highly racialized police projects within the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s executive orders are pulling U.S. immigration control back to its roots, absolute and racial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pushed back against this interpretation, affirming the reviewability of the seven-country ban. But the decisions made during the Chinese exclusion era are likely to protect many of the president\u2019s other orders from judicial review. That is, unless we overturn the settler mentality of U.S. immigration control.<\/p>\n<p><em>To learn more about the history of U.S. immigration control, see\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/editions.lib.umn.edu\/immigrationsyllabus\/\">#immigrationsyllabus<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <hr \/>\n<p><strong>About the author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/kelly-lytle-hernandez-337395\">Kelly Lytle Hernandez<\/a>, Associate Professor, History and African-American Studies,\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-california-los-angeles-1301\">University of California, Los Angeles<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism-73426\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly Lytle Hernandez\u00a0is a historian of immigration and mass incarceration, and the author of two books: Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010) and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, April 2017).<\/p>\n<div class=\"profile-bio \">\n<div>\nArticle republished via Creative Commons https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n  \n        \n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-related-stories \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-related-stories\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--section-title\">\n\n    \n  <h2>\n          Explore other articles\n      <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n                  <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/03\/04\/case-for-continuity-disability-support-services\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >The Case for Continuity: Geographic Fragmentation in Publicly Funded Disability Support Services<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/02\/19\/celebrating-solidarity-weaving-together-struggles-for-justice\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >Watch Recording Now &#8211; Celebrating Solidarity: Weaving Together Struggles for Justice<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/02\/11\/annual-report-2025\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >ERI 2025 Annual Interactive Report<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n            <\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":13899,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[94,69,137,68],"class_list":["post-13898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-csii","tag-history","tag-immigration","tag-mexico","tag-race"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - 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