Guarding the Golden Door : American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882
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United States Immigration
by: Roger Daniels
Topics include: controlling our borders, quota spaces, confession program, immigration reformers, turn against immigration, military brides, unmarried adult children, national origins system, immigration statutes, national party platforms, quota immigrants, refugee act, aliens ineligible, refugee immigration, refugee policy, immigration commission, bracero program
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Author judiciously avoids a sweeping narrative in favor of an immersion in the messy details of legislation and demography, although accurate assessments are elusive. Reflecting the lack of overarching plot, the book's first half is chronological to 1965, after which it switches to an ethnic breakdown. As Daniels shows, the subject yields hyperbolic rhetoric and misleading statistics, which rarely lead to coherent or effective legislation. Congress rarely grasp the real ramifications of its immigration policy as it underfunds its nominally ambitious measures. Despite his deeply academic cast of mind, Daniels keeps his prose engaging and lively, as he displays his evident love of accuracy and impatience with obfuscation. Those who read closely will unearth arresting tidbits, such as the central role of the Chinese as targets in virtually all early anti-immigration measures and the brief but virulent anti-Filipino hysteria of the early 1930s. Perhaps most interesting is the final section, in which Daniels tackles broader questions about the debate, including the surprisingly little-changed status of immigration in the post-9/11, post-INS landscape.
Author traces an erratic fever chart of changing attitudes among the American lawmakers who have set the conditions for legal entry into the country. Beginning his chronicle with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Daniels probes the convoluted politics behind immigration law, exposing the unexpected emergence of new immigration opportunities from policymaking suffused with racist logic and deceitful rhetoric. Daniels identifies, for instance, the often-overlooked liberalizing provisions of a cold war immigration reform that struck ethnic discrimination from immigration law at a time when American-born blacks were still struggling to achieve their full rights. Similarly, Daniels shows how a 1965 immigration law that its architects supposed would favor Europeans actually opened doors for Asians and Latinos. As Americans continue to debate immigration in a world divided by international terrorism, few books offer a fuller context for the key issues.
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