Daniels - Guarding The Golden Door (2004) - Synopsis

UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper XXXIV: August 6, 2007, 7:00 p.m. Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004; paperback 2005). [NOTE: Daniels rejects the term “undocumented persons” as “nonsense” and insists on using “illegal immigrants,” despite objections (139n.).] Dedication: To Harry H.L. Kitano (19262002), fellow scholar-activist. List of Tables and Charts. 26 tables, 5 charts. Acknowledgments. Has written on immigration since early 1960s. Based at the Univ. of Cincinnati. Fellow historians, students, editors, wife Judith Mandel Daniels. PART I: THE GOLDEN DOOR CLOSES AND OPENS, 1882-1965 Ch. 1: The Beginnings of Immigration Restriction, 1882-1917. “In the beginning Congress created the Chinese Exclusion Act . . . May 1882 . . . a nodal point in the history of American immigration policy” (3). Thirty-nine years of successive exclusions (1882-1921), twenty-two years of numerical limits on the rest (1921-1943) (3). Percentage of foreignborn in U.S. reached historic low, 4.7%, around 1970 (4-5). “The commonly held perception that America is receiving an unprecedented proportion of immigrants is false” (4). Most Americans revel in immigrant past and reject the immigrant present.(6). Nation’s first “illegal immigrants” were 50,000 slaves smuggled in after 1808 (6). U.S. policy was broadly pro-immigration for the first sixty years of American history (6-7). But nativist attitudes were widespread (7-8). Benjamin Franklin in 1751 (he later changed his views), writing in racist fashion against Germans, made accusations that became standard: they have bad habits, are clannish, don’t speak English, and will take over (8-9). Catholic immigration from Ireland and Germany “weakened” the “pro-immigration consensus” (9). Protestant nativist “Know-Nothing” movement (10-11). Fourteenth Amendment established national citizenship for the first time (11). Opponents of Chinese immigration prevailed (in particular, over Sen. Charles Sumner, who said the “peril” to the Republic existed only “in imagination; it is illusion, not a reality” [15]) and in 1870 excluded Chinese

from naturalization (11-15). But the Burlingame Treaty of 1871 with China recognized the right of migration (12). Virulent opposition to Asian immigration became the norm in the labor movement circa 1870 (1617). Page Act of 1875 effectively inhibited the immigration of Chinese women (17). A racist congressional report was submitted in 1876 (18). The Chinese Exclusion Act (actually called “To Execute Certain Treaty Stipulations Relating to Chinese”) passed in 1882 barred entry of Chinese laborers for ten years (18-19). Means for enforcement were lacking (20). “[A]nti-Chinese agitation and violence continued throughout the West” (20). The 1888 Scott Act unilaterally cancelled return certificates, in violation of the Sino-American Treaty of 1881, still in effect (20-21). The Geary Act of 1892 extended exclusion for ten years and required Chinese to obtain a certificate of residence or be deported; Supreme Court upheld the law in 1893 in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (149 U.S.698), ruling that unnaturalized immigrants are “more or less at the mercy of Congress” (22). But the act was not enforced, and Chinese were given more time to register; eventually 105,000 did (22). By taking advantage of the exemption for Chinese merchants, and by bringing in “paper sons,” said to be the offspring of Chinese who had acquired citizenship and had wives in China (“living widows”) (23-25). “Angel Island . . . existed to isolate and to impede the immigration of Chinese (25). The exclusionary laws fostered a bureaucratic culture that construed Chinese immigrants as “born liars” and subverted the very values that American officials claimed to be defending (25-26). Ch. 2: The 1920s: The Triumph of the Old Nativism. After the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) and the end of WWI, eight categories were excluded from immigration: contract laborers; Asians (except Japanese and Filipinos); some criminals; those failing to meet certain moral standards; those with certain diseases & disabilities; some radicals; and illiterates (27-35). The beginnings of the immigration service in the aftermath of the 1891 Immigration Act and the opening of Ellis Island (35-37). Supreme Court in the Insular Cases (1901-1904) ruled that the Constitution did not necessarily follow the flag (38-39).

Hawaii (38). Philippines and Puerto Rico (39). Administrative changes (39-40). Anti-Japanese agitation brings Teddy Roosevelt’s involvement and culminates in the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907-1908, according to which “Japan would not issue passports good for the continental United States to laborers, skilled or unskilled, but that passports could be issued to ‘laborers who had already been in America and the parents, wives and children of laborers already there” (44; 40-45). Immigration reached record levels in the decade from 1905 to 1914, with 9.9 million entering (45). In 1917 Congress overrode a presidential veto and imposed a literacy test, to little effect (46). Xenophobic nationalism “helped push antiimmigrant sentiment to perhaps its highest peaks in American history” in 1917 and subsequent years (47). This culminated in the first numerical limits to immigration in 1921 (47-49). The Immigration Act of 1924 “wrote the assumptions of the Immigration Restriction League and other nativist groups into the statute book of the United States” by excluding in subdivision “d” of Section 11 from “inhabitants in the United States in 1920” the following: immigrants from the New World and their descendants, Asians or their descendants; descendants of “slave immigrants,” and descendants of “American aborigines” (55; 4956). The new system took effect July 1, 1929; meanwhile, immigration continued (56-58). Ch. 3: No New Deal for Immigration. Immigration was cut from 1,218,480 in 1914 to 29,470 in 1934 (51, 60). Because of the Great Depression, interpretation of the LPC [‘likely to become a public charge’] clause was twisted to keep out laborers (60-62). Mexican immigration (62-65). FDR “stood pat” on immigration (66). Filipinos, stereotyped for aggressive sexuality (67-71). U.S. (and other nations) “failed the text of civilization” (Walter Mondale) in not doing more to facilitate asylum for Jews from Nazis (71-80). Ch. 4: World War II and After: The Barriers Begin to Drop. Alien Registration Act of 1940 (or “the Smith Act”) (83-84). Refugee policy: ‘several small gestures” (8487). Resident enemy aliens; action against 120,000 Japanese Americans was not “internment,” which is a legal process, but rather “simply lawless” treatment of citizens as “non-aliens,” also importing Japanese (and Germans and Italians), chiefly from Peru (8789; see Daniels, Prisoners without Trial: Japanese in World War II [1993]). The need for labor led to admission of “temporary” Mexican

workers in the bracero program (89-91). Chinese exclusion was repealed, following a campaign led by Pearl Buck’s husband; this proved to be “the hinge on which the nearly closed golden door of immigration began to swing open again (91-94). Rights of naturalization and full-quota immigration extended to Filipinos and “persons of races indigenous to India” in 1946 (95-96). But “American immigration law continued to be blatantly racist and discriminatory” (97). Ch. 5: Admitting Displaced Persons: 19461950. U.S. policy addressed “DPs” in Europe but many officials were hostile (99-100). The CIA had an exemption from immigration laws (100-01). Treasury Secretary Hans Morgenthau had U. of Pennsylvania Law School dean Earl G. Harrison sent to investigate, and his report led to action by Truman (101-04). But its ineffectiveness led to the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which settled more than 400,000, mostly in the Eastern U.S. (104-12). Ch. 6: The Cold War and Immigration. The McCarran-Walter Immigration Act of 1952 contained both nativist and liberalizing elements (113, 115-19). Labor switched its position and supported increased European immigration (114-15). The significance of the Internal Security Act of 1950 has been exaggerated (115). The final bar to Asian naturalization was lifted, leading to Asian immigration beyond the quota system through family reunification (119-20). Employment of illegal aliens not construed as the felony of “harboring” them (120-21). “Subversives” could not even have temporary visas (121). Truman vetoed with a strong denunciation of the quota system, but was overriden (121-22). Truman appointed a Commission on Immigration and Naturalization that produced a report entitled Whom We Shall Welcome advocating abolition of the national origins system and became a “liberal icon,” but Sen. McCarran denounced its “communist line” and it went nowhere until 1965, when its agenda was largely realized (122-23). The liberalizing aspects of the McCarran-Walter Act have been underestimated or ignored by historians (124). Eisenhower advocated further liberalization of immigration laws, to little effect (125-28). Ch. 7: Lyndon Johnson and the End of the Quota System. John F. Kennedy was an advocate of immigration reform, but achieved little but the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962 (129-32). Lyndon Johnson passed a liberal bill over the resistance led by Sen.

Sam Ervin (D-NC), ceding to it “the first imposition of a cpa on immigration from the Western Hemisphere” (133; 132-33). “The passage in 1965 of the landmark Immigration Act along with the Voting Rights Act and the laws creating Medicare/Medicaid, make that year the legislative high point of late-twentiethcentury liberalism,” but the immigration part of this has been neglected by historians (134). The law jetisoned the national quota system and adopted a ceiling of 290,000 annual according to hemispheric limits instead, abandoned in 1976 for a global ceiling (134). It maintained non-ethnic barriers (135). Few observers expected major changes to result, but it enabled a “chain migration,” especially through “second-preference immigrants,” i.e. “spouses and unmarried adult children of permanent resident aliens,” that escaped the numerical limits, leading to about 1m immigrants/year by the 1990s, up from 250k in the 1950s (135-38). “By the 1980s more than four-fifths of all legal immigrants came either from Asia or Latin America: if we could accurately include illegal immigrants in our calculations, the figure would undoubtedly exceed nine-tenths” (139). But an underlying pattern persisted: immigration “when there is a clear economic and/or social advantage” (139). Illegal immigrants: Irish (140-42), Mexican (142-44). PART II: CHANGING PATTERNS IN A CHANGING WORLD, 1965-2001 Ch. 8: Immigrants from Other Worlds: Asians. Rapid increase of immigration from Asia (147-48). “Asian American” is a racist government construct (149-50). Chinese Americans (150-61). Japanese Americans (16164). Filipino Americans (164-67). Korean Americans (167-71). “Asian Indian” Ameicans (171-73). Ch. 9: Immigrants from Other Worlds: Latinos. The “Hispanic or Latino” classification (175-77). Mexicans (177-82). Cuban Americans (182-87). “Other Hispanic” category (187-88). Dominicans (188-89). Ch. 10: Refugees and Human Rights: Cubans, Southeast Asians, and Others. “The admission of refugees has been the wild card in the immigration policy of the United States ever since the end of World War II” (190; 190-92). Cuban refugees (191-208). The case of Elián Gonzales (208-208-10). Bush’s Cuban refugee policy (210-12). Haitians (21214). Pre-1970s Asian refugees (214).

Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees (215-18). Refugees from the Soviet Union (217-18). Ch. 11: Immigration Reform: Myths and Realities. Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy led by Theodore M. Hesburgh of the Univ. of Notre Dame (19791981) and the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform led by Barbara Jordan (1991-1997) both “advocated reducing the number of immigrants and providing a more ‘balanced’ mix” (220; 219-24). Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 “was, essentially, a schizoid measure reflecting deep divisions in Congress,” since its provisions creating sanctions for employers and increasing enforcement at the border were not serious and other parts of the law expanded legal immigration through amnesty (almost 3m achieved permanent resident status by 1998), “seasonal agricultural workers,” and “The Lottery” (224-31). “In the final analysis, IRCA was not ‘reform legislation’” (231). Ch. 12: “Controlling Our Borders”: Struggles over Immigration Policy. A new wave of anti-immigrant sentiment crested in 1993-1995 (232-34). INS’s poor misrepresentation of data exacerbated public sentiment by showing an IRCA spike (234-36). Congress passed 24 pieces of immigration legislation from 1986 to 1998 (237). Immigration Act of 1990 (237-39). Clinton avoided looking “soft” on immigration (23940). The Jordan commission’s first interim report emphasized the INS’s inefficiency (24041). 1994 legislation (242-43). The nakedly nativist Proposition 187, making illegal immigrants ineligible for public services, passed with nearly 60%, though it was “patently unconstitutional” (242-44). More get-tough legislation in 1996 (244-45). 1996 presidential election (245-46). The “turn against immigration” subsided in the late 1990s (246-48). An analysis of U.S. immigration in the year 2000 (249-59). Epilogue: Immigration after 9/11. Beginning and end of 20th century compared (261). About 3 emigrate from for every 10 who immigrate to the U.S. (261-62). Sept. 11, 2001, has not changed the social and economic forces that produces increased immigration in the late 20th century (263). On March 1, 2003, INS became part of the Dept. of Homeland Security and was trisected into a Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCBP), a Bureau of Immigration and Customs

Enforcement (BICE), and a Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), all reporting to a DHS undersecretary for border and transportation services (263-65). Better understanding of the economic importance of immigration is weakening the strength of nativism (265-67). Misuse of the immigration system in the aftermath of 9/11 was “merely one more bitter fruit of policies begun as part of Chinese exclusion. To quote Lucy Salyer [Laws Harsh as Tigers] again: ‘[In the struggle to exclude Chinese] government officials . . . persuaded Congress and the Supreme Court that the nation’s gates could be effectively guarded only if they were allowed full authority and discretion over immigration policy wihtout interference from the federal courts’” (268; 267-68). Notes. 31 pp. Bibliography. 16 pp. 210 books, 71 articles, 43 collections of government documents, 3 Ph.D. dissertations.

Index. 12 pp. [On the Author. Roger Daniels, Charles Phelps Taft Professor of History emeritus at the Universtiy of Cincinnati, is one of the most eminent historians of U.S. immigration history. He has been president of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era as well as the Immigration History Society. He served as consultant to the Presidential Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians and was a planning committee member for the immigration museum on Ellis Island. He is the founding editor of the Asian American Experience series for the University of Illinois Press, and the author of Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (rev. ed. 2004)] a dozen other books, many of them on Japanese Americans. He is currently at work on a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and a study of the so-called 1942-1944 Japanese American cases and their continuing importance and influence. Daniel’s mother came to U.S. in 1900 as a baby (4n.). He was born in New York City and served in the merchant marine in WWII and in the Army during the Korean War. He earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1961.]