Migration, Mobility & Borders: Reading Paper Week 4

Allison Brown HIST 5400: Migration, Mobility & Borders Dr. Hampton September 15, 2022 Reading Response - Week 4 Moloney’s National Insecurities: Immigrants and U.S. Deportation Policy Since 1882 (2012) centers around the intersections of race, gender, religion, and class and how these different factors interacted with one another for the creation and implementation of immigration policy and how this these policies overarching are impacted and “intertwined with larger social concerns about foreign policy and national security, the economy, scientific and medical issues, morality, and attitudes about class, religion, and citizenship.”1 Moloney historiographically utilizes both different personal accounts and cases of immigration policy to situate her argument in different times given immigration law. Additionally, by drawing comparisons to the current setting she wrote in, being 2012, the author is able to not only discuss these elements of deportation and exclusion policy, but place them in a modern context to better understand the trends and sentiments of immigration policies today. To begin, a connection between this work and Hirota’s Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the 19th-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy (2017) in terms of connections between the role states played initially in developing immigration to the federal policies which readers see take form in Moloney with the Page Law (1875) and the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) again serving as the primary examples of federal immigration policies. The author also notes the importance of the 1911 Dillingham Commission Report via the US Senate which laid the groundwork for federal policy to implement national quota systems for immigration. On the role of poor laws and deportation Moloney argues, “ the mechanism for exclusion and deportation expanded from an ad hoc, piecemeal process at the state level, rooted in European poor laws, to a national border-focused approach, to a sustained effort to 2 regulate and police the activities of noncitizens sometimes for decades after their arrival.” Moloney 1 Deirdre M. Moloney, National Insecurities: Immigrants and U.S. Deportation Policy Since 1882 (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). pg. 4 2 pg. 9 further examines the role not only of the US federal government and congress, but also the burgeoning role in which federal agencies would play in the creation and implementation of immigration policy. As federal agencies in the US formally established systems for visas and passports in the 1920s, the Bureau of Immigration was formed and the FBI was reformed under Hoover as the Director of the FBI. 3 To start with the Bureau of Immigration, Moloney argues that the changes in the name of the agency overtime, eventually developing into the modern day Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS DHS) reflects the “historic evolution … and its continually shifting administrative jurisdiction … those changes demonstrate the increasingly contested nature of immigration in the US and 4 the federal government’s role in its regulation.” This example of USCIS continually changing their name and mission builds on Moloney’s argument that US immigration policy during these epochs was disparate and poorly regulated, by progressing her argument to the modern day in relation to the impacts of 9/11 on US immigration policy as well as the construction of the Department of Homeland Security, Moloney endeavors to draw a connection regarding the primary issues of immigration policy in history, be that prostitution, political extremism, religion etc. to those of the present in 2012 and in a post 9/11 society with terrorism, concerns of national security, and ‘drug-related’ immigration potentially from the US-Mexico Border and how this relates to “law-and-order”. Additionally, Moloney also alludes to the influence of Director Hoover in the Bureau of Information (later to be the FBI) stating he “eventually headed the agency, claimed a major stake in 5 regulating immigration to deport those whom they deemed subversive threats.” More so than Moloney’s argument, this idea of influence and consolidation of power to a federal agency on a singular issue such as immigration was incredibly problematic. Beginning as the Director of the FBI in 1924, Hoover’s extensive term would seek to consolidate power into the FBI for unilateral action. By using the previously passed Sedition Act (1918), Hoover with the FBI was able to target political dissidents and seek deportation unilaterally. These transgressions culminated in the Palmer Raids in 1919-1920 which were 3 pg. 9 4 pg. 14 5 pg. 16 initially a series of bombing and mail bombing plots seemingly charged by the “communist or leftist” presence in the US. These perceived concerns, at the height of the red scare, led to a series of unconstitutional raids violating both the first amendment rights of individuals and the fifth amendment as many individuals were arrested, detained, and even deported without due process. By examining the role in which US government agencies are able to control the legal requirements and dialogue surrounding immigration and implementation of deportation, Moloney is able to complete argument’s constructed by Hirota in establishing the federal government’s discretion over immigration, carried out via agency. Shifting to examine the role of exclusion policies and how gender ideologies and religion impacted those individuals who were able to migrate to the United States, the 1965 Hart-Cellar Law complicated the Bureau of Immigration’s exclusion and deportation policies regarding members of different religious groups. I found the intersection between married women in different religious groupings to have a strong impact on a married-woman’s probability of being granted access into the US. Starting with the 1875 Page Law, which constrained the immigration of unmarried women due to their 6 perceived likeliness to engage in prostitution , it became increasingly difficult for single women to immigrate into the US for a myriad of regions, many of which were problematic due to the perceived threats of racial concerns, being a “likely public charge” or not upholding the morality of women and children in the US. These increased concerns regarding single women migration, “reduced migration opportunities for women in general, subjected them to intense scrutiny by the state, constructed the contours of their personal relationships, and in some cases permanently separated them from their infant children.” 7 Moloney later goes on in chapter five to explain how these double standards of marriage at the border negatively impacted polygamists in the late nineteenth century. Interestingly, Moloney mentions the work of a women’s suffrage advocate in Utah, Angela French Newman on the impacts of Mormon polygamy on unmarried immigrant women, claiming that Mormons were, “wholly ignorant of our language or laws, or the significance of the franchise, with the odor of the emigrant ship still upon their clothing” these women, according to Newman were, “as far removed from our idea of womanhood as the 6 pg. 31 7 pg. 49 8 earth is removed from the sun.” Similar concerns would arise in the State Department under William Jennings Bryant concerning polygamist relationships from Muslim, Turkish immigrants but eventually the US government would opt to prioritize their “significant economic interests in Turkey, so there was a strong desire as the part of the State Department to protect that diplomatic relationship and to address any 9 matters that might harm existing negotiations.” These double standards in terms of immigration policy regarding polygamy both showcase the concerns over changes in “typical” religious and social cultures in the US, but more so the structure of the nuclear family which was critical in maintaining the status quo of dominant culture at the time in the US. By controlling and legislating the practice of religious traditions, regardless of the establishment of freedom of religion, the US government at this time “rendered it more difficult for the diffusion of beliefs to occur. By interrogating immigrants in some groups about their religious beliefs in ways that differed from those in more mainstream groups, the US government’s early 10 regulation efforts effectively hampered the development of new religious communities in the The US.” impacts of such regulation and control would again have intersectional consequences for immigration as Monloney notes moving into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Discussion Questions 1. Moloney writes, “Deportation and exclusion, like a double helix, run in separate lines but cross at critical points … over time, judicial decisions began to reflect greater distinctions between the exclusion and deportation process. Ultimately, each process evolved to encompass a particular set of rights.” (203) What additional examples from our previous readings (Welke and Hirota) can we point to confirm Moloney’s statement? 8 pg. 139 9 pg. 140 10 pg. 161 2. Why does Moloney close most chapters with a connection to current immigration policy in the United States? By doing this, does she not fully acknowledge the other periods of history which lead up to the current policies, or does it progress her argument as she intends? 3. How does Oppenheimer reflect Moloney’s argument? As she writes, “Oppenheimer emphasized that most deported immigrants were not convicted criminals but had violated immigration law on a technicality. Because of the significance and irrevocable nature of the deportation act, he recommended that a presidential pardon be allowed in certain cases.” (206) Is this example sufficient in explaining the “technicalities” of which immigrants may be deported?