Deportation Nation Outsiders in American History

Description

The danger of deportation hangs over the head of virtually every non-citizen in the United States. In the complexities and inconsistencies of immigration law, one can find a reason to deport almost any noncitizen at almost any time. In recent years, the system has been used with unprecedented vigour against millions of deportees. We are a nation of immigrants - but which ones do we want, and what do we do with those that we don't? These questions have troubled American law and politics since colonial times. "Deportation Nation" is a chilling history of communal self-idealization and self-protection. The post-Revolutionary Alien and Sedition Laws, the Fugitive Slave laws, the Indian "removals", the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Palmer Raids, the internment of the Japanese Americans - all sought to remove those whose origins suggested they could never become "true" Americans. And for more than a century, millions of Mexicans have conveniently served as cheap labour, crossing a border that was not official until the early 20th century and being sent back across it when they became a burden. By illuminating the shadowy corners of American history, Daniel Kanstroom shows that deportation has long been a legal tool to control immigrants' lives and is used with increasing crudeness in a globalised but xenophobic world. Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Antecedents Part 1: English Roots, Colonial Controls and Criminal Transportation Part 2: The Alien and Sedition Acts: A “First Experiment” Part 3: Indian Removal, Fugitive Slave Laws, and “Colonization” Chapter 3. From Chinese Exclusion to Post-Entry Social Control: The Early Formation of the Modern Deportation System Chapter 4. The Second Wave: Expansion and Refinement of Modern Deportation Law Chapter 5. The Third Wave: 1930–1964 Chapter 6. Discretion, Jurisdiction Stripping, and Retroactivity, 1965–2006 Notes Index