Immigration Policy After the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 and the Turn to the Political Right

 

Immigration Policy After the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 and the Turn to the Political Right

The Trump administration is reviewing a proposal that would make it more difficult for legal immigrants to become citizens if they have ever drawn on any number of widely available welfare programs.  According to various sources from the unfake news industry, this shift in policy would not require congressional approval.  The policy is the brainchild of make America great again for white people policy adviser, 33-year-old Stephen Miller.  The yet to be finalized policy, would hinder legal immigrants who have ever used “or whose household members have ever used Obamacare, children’s health insurance, food stamps and other benefits from attaining legal status” as U.S. citizens.  This would have a pernicious impact on the working poor, particularly those born in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa.  If enacted, this would represent the most drastic change in legal immigration policy in decades which could adversely affect 20 million immigrants living at the lower strata of the socio-economic ladder by further compounding problems of homelessness, unmet health needs, hunger, and needed resources for child support. 

Miller was the brainchild of the widely criticized family separation policy directed against those seeking refugee status from various Latin American countries, especially El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Channeling this anti-immigrant zealotry, Fox talk show host, Laura Inghram declared, “The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.   Her outburst was in response to the upset primary victory of the Democratic socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York’s 14th congressional district.  The “we” to whom Inghram references clearly does not include those who Ocasio-Cortez represents, or Rashida Tliab, a Palestinian-American who won the recent Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th congressional district.  Both she and Ocasio-Cortez are likely to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  As further expounded by Inghram, “massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don’t like.”  Who has done the “foisting” is not exactly clear as the verb implies a level of conspiratorial intentionality that cannot be justified by the cross current of factors underlying the motivations of millions of immigrants who have entered the U.S. during the past 50 years. 

By “we” and “us,” Inghram means white people of vintage European stock and not the millions of Asians, Latin Americans, African, and Caribbean, and Middle Eastern people who have migrated to the U.S. during the past 50 years, many of whom are naturalized citizens, in which the vast majority possess legal status.  It seems that Inghram views the likes of those who Ocasio-Cortez and Tliab represent as beyond the pale of those included among “real” Americans.    While this “white anxiety” is especially pernicious as channeled by Inghram, Sean Hannity, Miller, Sessions, General Kelly, and Trump, it is rooted in the demographic upheavals unleashed by the the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.  This landmark legislation, passed in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, eliminated quota restrictions against non-white as well as south east and eastern European groups as enacted the Immigration Act of 1924. 

As initially forecasted, the 1965 legislation was not intended to fundamentally reshape the nation’s demographic landscape.  Yet for a variety of “push” factors from the sending countries, including the upheavals unleashed in Southeast Asia as a result of the Vietnam War, that is precisely what happened in the 50 years following that historic act.   Specifically, from 1965 to 2015 the nation’s total Caucasian population dropped from 84% to 62%, while the Asian population increased from 1% to 6% percent, and the Hispanic population grew from a paltry 4% to 18% of the nation’s population (including citizens and immigrants).  Based on projections to mid-century, Caucasians will soon represent less than 50% of the nation’s population.  It is the anxiety among cultural, political, and religious conservatives stimulated by this demographic shift that has stoked the culture wars against “third world” immigration as nothing less than a “clash of civilizations” in the need among the stalwart to preserve the values of western civilization against various “invasions” from the south and the east.

Efforts to pass bi-partisan comprehensive immigration, including the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, continued with the second Bush and Obama administrations.  These latter efforts, including strong border protection and a very lengthy process of legalization and paths to citizenship extending beyond a decade, have failed to attain congressional approval due to right-wing congressional blockage within a small, but politically potent minority within the Republican Party.  Rejecting notions of a bi-partisan approach, even one rooted in conservative political ideology, those espousing an extreme anti-immigration view draw on terms like “illegals” and “aliens” to characterize undocumented people, particularly from Latin America.  It was such vilification that the Trump administration was banking on when it enacted its family separation policy for the expressed purpose of discouraging refugees from migrating to the U.S., which backfired when even evangelical Trump supporter, Franklin Graham, spoke out against the policy.

The shift toward a conservative immigration policy is understandable given the rise of the political right since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  As a nation, we have moved considerably to the right of the political liberalism that gave shape to the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.  This deep-rooted political shift has underlain all of the major immigration proposals since the 1980s.  What is of concern in the current setting is the rapid anti-immigration posture of the Trump administration, which, in its pernicious stereotyping, is reviving some of the most malevolent white nationalist rhetoric ever enacted in this nation.  The irony is that the moral trustworthiness of authentic conservative political credibility is placed in jeopardy as the invective hatred of the “alien” other moves beyond the pale of any national consensus needed to come to some reasonable conclusions in forming a viable immigration policy for our times.

2018

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