Anthropology essay final

Constructing Illegality Timeline

• Review De Genova, Kibria, and Gomberg- Muñoz (Ch 2) to create a timeline for your assigned timeframe, answering: • IDENTIFY - What were the key pieces of policy/law

that contributed to the development of “illegal” migration flows and popular notions about “illegality”?

• DESCRIBE - What did each policy do?

• EXPLAIN - How did it contribute to the production of “illegal” migration, and the association of “illegality” with Mexican/Latin American migration?

Massey, D. S., & Pren, K. A. (2012). Unintended

consequences of US immigration policy: explaining the

post-1965 surge from Latin America. Population and

development review, 38(1), 1–29.

Pre- 1920’s

• Mexicans originally considered as “conquered native population” (post- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) – sense of responsibility to the population • Racially defined as white, immigration allowed

• BUT in practice excluded from immigration and citizenship through other mechanisms, including literacy tests, ban on contract labor, “public charge” provision – “qualitative” but not quantitative exclusions (De Genova)

• Not included in pops with numerical quotas in National Origins Quotas Act 1924 (no numerical limits)

20’s

• After illegal entry was made a felony in 1929, illegal immigration became increasingly associated with Mexicans…

• “The number of Mexicans deported formally under warrant rose from 846 in 1920 to 8,438 in 1930. In addition, some 13,000 Mexicans a year were expelled as "voluntary departures" in the late 1920s and early 1930s. By the late 1920s the problem of illegal immigration became increasingly associ- ated with Mexicans, as they came to constitute half of those deported formally under warrant and over 80 percent of all voluntary departures”

• (European communities based in NY were better organized, had more resources, better access to lawyers – more often avoided deportation… LESS likely to become associated with illegality)

• New York deportation cases – 20% with legal representation • Texas deportation cases – 2% with legal representation

20’s

“”Illegal” became constitutive of “Mexican,” referring, not

to citizens of Mexico, but to a wholly negative racial

category, which comprised both Mexican immigrants and

Mexican Americans in the United States. The construction

of Mexicans as an illegal and illegitimate foreign presence

in their former homeland played a central role in the

reorganization of the agricultural labor market in the

1920’s..” (p. 91)

30’s

Mexicans in 1930 redefined as a separate race – “persons born in Mexico or with parents born in Mexico and who “are not definitely white, Negro, Indian, Chinese, or Japanese.” Distinguishing a separate race of illegitimate foreigners, official policy hardened the idea of Mexicans as a disposable labor force and facilitated the deportation and repatriation of over 400,000 Mexicans (half of them children with United States citizenship) during the Great Depression.” (p. 91)

• Border Patrol in Department of Labor*** • Deportation as union-busting strategy

• Mass deportations of immigrants AND US citizens of Mexican descent

• Exclusion from Great Depression relief

40’s-60’s

Bracero program: 5 million

• Perhaps 4x as many unauthorized migrants as formally contracted Braceros

• After end of program, continued migration without authorization

• Mostly CYCLICAL/SEASONAL (coming and going)

Mass deportation

• Operation Wetback 1954

1965…

• No more national origins

• Replaced with global quota system – 20,000 per country • Imposed quotas on Western Hemisphere migration for the first time

ever (120,000 total, no country specifics) • Opened up immigration opportunities for people from Asia and Africa,

but severely restricted migration from Mexico, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

• 1976 amendments - imposed 20,000 per year quotas on Western Hemisphere countries, and closed a loophole that had allowed undocumented Mexicans with U.S.-born children to legalize their status. • early 1960’s migration patterns entailed 35,000 annual entries and

200,000 bracero entries per year • Now entire hemisphere capped to 20,000. What happens next?

1965++

• “The number of deportations of undocumented Mexicans increased by 40 percent in 1968, to 151,000.

• The figure continued to rise: in 1976, when the 20,000 per country quota was imposed, the INS expelled 781,000 Mexicans from the United States. Meanwhile, the total number of apprehensions for all others in the world, combined, remained below 100,000 per year.

• As Nicholas DeGenova has noted, the INS’s “enforcement proclivities and prerogatives, and the statistics they produce, have made an extraordinary contribution to the commonplace fallacy insinuating that Mexicans account for virtually all ‘illegal aliens,’ have served to stage the U.S.-Mexico border as the theatre of an enforcement ‘crisis,’ and have rendered ‘Mexican’ as the distinctive national/racialized name for migrant ‘illegality’.” (p. 261)

1976++

• “illegal” migration takes center stage

“illegal” migration became the explicit problem toward which most of the major subsequent changes in immigration policy have been at least partly directed (De Genova 2014)

Changes to family immigration system (privileged US citizens – combined with low naturalization rates of Mexicans, large impact)

--backlogs in application processing

1986

• 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act– 2 kinds of amnesty, employer sanctions, border enforcement^^^^ • Legalization programs major turning point

• SAW – Special Agricultural Workers (certain number of days worked in agriculture during a defined time frame)

• General legalization – time in residence, good moral character

----------Mexican population bifurcated along legal lines • Some with legal status and access to family legalization and U.S.

citizenship (cross-border mobility)

• The rest, and all future migrants, stuck in illegality (or in some cases “liminal” legality, ie. DACA) and immobility

90’s-2000

• 1990 Immigration Act • Raised total immigration cap from 500,000 to 700,000 • Created TPS status • Doubled employment-based visas (Kibria et al ch 2)

• IIRIRA 1996 most punitive to date • Border police empowered to execute deportations without court proceedings –

discretionary authority • Redefined aggravated felonies in immigration cases (reduced prison term needed

to qualify as agg felonies) – these changes were for noncitizens ONLY • Greater restrictions on relief from removal – we will talk more about this

• PRWORA “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act” 1994 “welfare reform” – restrictions to eligibility for means-tested public benefits… etc. etc.

Laws as “incentive for illegality” – encouraging folks to evade scrutiny of the law

1986-2000

• After 1986 IRCA (and other subsequent policies) • Deflected migrants away from California crossing spots

(where border was reinforced)

• Crossing in more rural, dangerous areas (environment, gangs, etc.)

• Cost of crossing ^^^^

2000’s

• New kind of security state

• Department of Homeland Security created, Immigration and Nationality Service absorbed into DHS

• PATRIOT Act 2001 – surveillance powers, detention powers

• Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act, 2002

• REAL ID Act 2005

“national security grounds” of inadmissibility, removal (no appeal, no need to explain why)

2000’s

• Sensenbrenner bill HR 4437, 2005 • Would have made unlawful presence a felony

• Mandatory detention, felon status – irreversible illegality

• (protest response 2006)

• Secure Fence Act 2006

• State-level legislation and policy emerging

2000-2014

• SB 1070 Arizona “papers please” –police can ask for immigration documents if “reasonable suspicion” of illegality (???)

• Calls for “Comprehensive immigration reform”

• Almost always entails a “bargain” – legalization in exchange for increased enforcement/border security (sound familiar? 1986 IRCA)

• Guestworker programs (sound familiar?)

• “immigration pragmatists” (Kibria et al) – distinguish between “good” and “bad” immigrants

• DREAM Act (proposed 2010)

• DACA – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, 2012

So, does the system “work”?

• What does De Genova say?

How do we know the numbers?

• https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2019/07/12/how-pew-research-center- counts-unauthorized-immigrants-in-us/ - feel free to cite this article/video in your papers