A War on Terror Morphed into a War on Immigration?
Blurring the lines between National Security Responses and Immigration Law
Tightening Immigration Restrictions in Times of Turmoil: A Historical Perspective
In order to understand the United States’ response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, one must examine the historical events that set the trends and precedents for this response. As stated in Salyer’s “Treatment of Noncitizens after September 11 in Historical Context,” “the US government’s targeting of selected immigrant groups, post-9/11, is not just similar to its persecution of aliens at earlier moments of crisis. It is in some ways directly the heir to the legislation, judicial precedents, and social trends of those earlier times (Salyer 64). Throughout US history, there have been various instances of an extreme tightening of immigration restrictions in times of national security crises.
The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
The first significant flux of Chinese immigration into the United States began with the California Gold Rush of 1848-1855 and continued with large labor projects, such as the buildings of the first Transcontinental railroad. During the early stages of the Gold Rush, when surface gold was plentiful, the Chinese were tolerated and even welcomed. However, as gold became harder to find and competition increased, animosity towards the Chinese and other foreigners increased. After being driven from the mines, most Chinese people settled in enclaves and began participating in low-wage labor. With the post-Civil War economy in decline by the 1970s, anti-Chinese animosity was on the rise and became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his Workingman’s Party as well as by California Governor John Bigler. Both of these political figures propagated the idea that Chinese immigrants depressed wage levels, thus harming individual American workers and the US economy. By 1870, Chinese residents constituted 8.6% of the total population of California and 25% of the labor force. On May 6, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States. In the Chinese Exclusion Case of 1889, the Court emphasized:
To preserve its independence, and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment, is the highest duty of every nation, and to attain these ends nearly all other considerations are to be subordinated… the government, possessing the powers which are to be exercised for protection and security, is clothed with the authority to determine the occasion on which the powers shall be called forth … if, therefore, the government of the United States, through its legislative department, considers the presence of foreigners of a different race in this country, who will not assimilate with us, to be dangerous to its peace and security … its determination is conclusive upon the judiciary (1378).
This ruling set an extremely important precedent in the future of US immigration law. Ultimately, this case suggests that the government may rely on the talisman of national security and independence to justify discrimination in immigration laws.
In this case, it was economic decline and thus national turmoil that led to the scapegoating of an entire group of people, and a moratorium on their immigration into the United States.
The Red Scare and the Palmer Raids
The first “Red Scare,” which occurred immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and during the last years and immediate aftermath of World War I, refers to the widespread fear and government paranoia about the potential rise of communism. Newspapers exacerbated these fears, promoting an anti-foreign sentiment by portraying various immigrant groups as radical threats to American society. The extreme xenophobia and mistreatment of immigrants during The Red Scare reached its peak with the Palmer Raids of 1919-1920. In April 1919, authorities discovered a plot to mail 36 bombs to prominent members of the US political and economic establishment. Shortly after, in June of 1919, eight bombs simultaneously exploded in eight cities. Immediately after, Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer ordered the Palmer Raids, which were carried out with the goal of deporting “individuals deemed subversive, specifically focusing on groups such as the Communist Party, Communist Labor Party, and the Union of Russian Workers” (Salyer 73). During this time, thousands were arrested without warrants, held without charges and denied legal counsel. Harvard Law Professor Zechariah Chafee Jr. warned that “unless the methods used by the Department of Justice are severely condemned by Congress and the American people they will be repeated in future emergencies” (Salyer 75). The extreme violations of the Palmer Raids, however, slipped through with little condemnation and investigation. This set a precedent in defining immigrants as threats to national security and undeserving of certain constitutional rights – a definition that continues to remain true today. Shortly after the Palmer Raids, the Immigration Act of 1924 came to fruition. This Act solidified a strict quota system, in which 70% of immigrant quotas went to immigrants from the UK, Ireland and Germany. These deportations and laws were guided by anti-immigrant sentiments, which were fueled by economic decline and terrorist threats.
The Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (1942)
As Professor Zechariah Chafee Jr. warned in 1921, the lack of condemnation during the Palmer Raids allowed for further expressions of xenophobia in times of national security crises. During World War II and shortly after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, over 110,000 Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps. Of these individuals, 65% were American citizens by birth. The government justified this internment on the grounds of “protect[ing] against possible sabotage by enemy aliens who remained loyal to Japan” (Salyer, 77). At a congressional hearing on the issue, Angelo Rossi, the Mayor of San Francisco, argued that “every Japanese alien should be removed from this community” (Salyer 77). He went even further and called for detailed investigations of Japanese citizens as well, and if any are deemed to be not loyal to the US, he called for their removal as well. Clearly, the US justified the internment and deportation of all Japanese people – citizen and immigrant – on the grounds that the whole community constituted a national security threat.
The US hostage Crisis in Iran (1979)
On November 4, 1979, 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days after a group of Iranian students took over the US Embassy in Tehran. During the hostage crisis, the US deployed immigration law in various ways against Iranian nationals. One regulation required only Iranian students on nonimmigrant visas to report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and provide info about their residence and evidence of school enrollment. If a student failed to report, he would be subject to deportation proceedings. In Narenji v. Civileti, two groups of non-immigrant students from Iran filed class action lawsuits, arguing that the regulation violatied the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.