B (16:00)

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It's like a storm, but the coverage leaves you feeling unsatisfied. Well, that's where we come in. I'm Meghna Chakrabarti, host of OnPoint. We ask the questions that still need answers. We analyze the meaning behind the news and why it matters to your life. We equip you with the knowledge you

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need to face the next news storm. On point is clarity when it counts.

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Subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. This month as we celebrate women, I'm reflecting on the women who have shaped me. One friend in particular inspires me with how she balances motherhood, partnership and career goals while still being the emotional anchor for so many people. But being strong doesn't mean carrying everything alone. Therapy can be a place to process stress, celebrate growth, and prioritize your own needs. Better Help makes it easy to get started. Their therapists are fully licensed in the US and follow a strict code of conduct. You complete a short questionnaire and with more than 30,000 therapists and over 12 years of experience, better. They'll match you to someone who fits your needs, usually right away. And if you need a different fit, you can switch anytime. They've served more than 6 million people worldwide and have a 4.9 out of 5 session rating from over 1.7 million reviews. Your emotional wellbeing matters, find support and feel lighter in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off@betterhelp.com Sharon that's better. H E L P.com Sharon Foreign I'm joined now by Ana Raquel Minion to talk about her book, in the Shadow of Liberty. I found your book so helpful in better understanding the history of immigration in the United States because in order to understand the present, we need to understand the past. We need to understand how we got here. And that's why I really appreciate your work and your time. So thank you for being here.

B (18:07)

Thank you so much for inviting me.

A (18:09)

I would love to start with just some really foundational questions because people tend to think that immigration has two time phases in the United States. Number one, Ellis Island. Number two, people entering the United States illegally from Mexico. Those are the two things that I'm sure you're very familiar, like these two sort of stereotypes people have when it comes to immigration. And of course, that is not the case. Of course, that's not actually true. But take us back to the 19th century, when immigration really began to change the face of America in huge ways. I would love to hear more about what was immigration like during my favorite historic time period back in the day? What was it like back in the day of, let's say, mid 19th century?

B (19:04)

So what's interesting about back in the day and the cases that you brought up is that nowadays we consider unauthorized migration, like you said, to be very much linked to the entrance of Mexican, Central Americans and others across the US Mexico border. But the real concern around immigration and immigrants who are coming to the United States centered in the 19th century originally around Chinese migrants. There were a lot of laws that tried to ban Chinese migrants from coming, the best known and most influential being the 1882 Chinese Exclusion act that said that basically most Chinese people couldn't come to the United States. On the other hand, immigration from Europe was also happening at very, very high rates. And we have this belief that European immigrants were all welcome. And while they were much more welcome indeed than Chinese migrants, as soon as American legislators realized, hey, we don't want Chinese people here, then they were like, well, what about other groups of people? We also don't want convicts. We also don't want. And these were their words, lunatics. And so they started to bar some Europeans from coming. Chinese migrants continued to come. They found ways to do so. Europeans continued to come. But immigration starting in the 19th century was no longer as easy. People could no longer come as easily as they had previously.

A (20:39)

What was the driving force behind the exclusion of Chinese immigrants? I mean, we know that a lot of it was racism, but it's not like they were going to the newspaper and being like, well, because I'm a racist, I'm going to pass this law that makes it so that people of Asian descent can't come here. What reason were they actually giving to the American public?

B (21:01)

That's absolutely right. And I think actually when we talk about racism and say, like, oh, that's racist, it's such an easy way to dismiss someone and not to understand what's happening, and so to not actually be able to change that logic because you don't fully understand it. So the logic behind Chinese exclusion at the time was that there was a big recession in California in the 1870s. Chinese people were migrating to California in huge numbers. So there was already concern that Chinese people looked differently, they had different costumes, you know, that they perhaps smoked opium, that they were lazy. But primarily, it became an economic argument if Chinese workers are taking our jobs.

A (21:43)

So the arguments they were making in public were primarily economic, that we can't let this group of people, you know, air quotes these people, come over here and take our jobs, with the subtext being that the jobs belong to us and those people are taking the jobs that should belong to us. Am I understanding that correctly?

B (22:04)

Absolutely, that's correct.

A (22:06)

You mentioned that Starting in the mid 19th century, it began to become more difficult to come to the United States, even for some European groups. Tell us more about that. Because I think there's this idea that, like, if you could get the money for a ticket, you just make your way on down to the dock and you can get on the boat, and then you can come here. And, I mean, that was probably true for a lot of people. But what was it actually like in

B (22:33)

practice for the vast majority of people, it was true. If you came from Europe, if you came from China, it became increasingly hard, as I said. But once legislators realized that, look, we don't have to only stop Chinese people. We can stop other folks from coming into the country. Like, we don't want people who could engage in prostitution. We don't want people who will become a public charge, meaning that they would not be able to pay their way, as legislators believe should be happening for immigrants. All these people were no longer wanted, and they decided that they could be excluded from entrance.

A (23:09)

What exactly was the process for people who arrived but were not going to be admitted?

B (23:15)

Until 1891, federal immigrant detention on land was not legal. So people who arrived and did not have the clearance to enter the country could not be held on land by the federal statutes. They had to be held on the vessels on which they arrived. So, for example, you came on a vessel, immigration officials would enter the vessels, would check if you were allowed to enter, and if they didn't, they were supposed to be deported. There were problems with the system. The ships often had to depart right before immigration officials.

A (23:50)

Sure, we'll wait here indefinitely.

B (23:52)

Exactly. So in 1891, Congress passed a law that said, okay, yes, we can hold immigrants while we Determine whether they can stay or not on land. And the following year, Ellis island opened up. We know of Ellis island as this gateway to America.

C (24:10)

Right.

B (24:11)

But in fact, it also served as a detention center, as a place where immigrants were to be held while immigration officials determined their right to enter or not. Yeah.

A (24:21)

You have a whole chapter in your book called Ellis island was a Prison.

B (24:25)

That's right.

A (24:26)

We associate Ellis island with a Statue of Liberty. You know, like, that's the American viewpoint of it of, like, the people would sail into New York harbor and they'd see the Statue of Liberty and the orchestra would swell in the background, you know, like the. With the violins playing of, like, we've made it. It's been an arduous journey. The promised land is finally here. The streets are paved with gold. It's the land of opportunity. And for some people, that is probably what happened. But for others, Ellis island was a prison. Like, explain. Make it make sense.

B (24:58)

So, like you said, for the vast majority of people, they came, they spend a day in Ellis Island. It was an arduous day, full of medical checkups, legal checkups, and others. And then they entered and were in New York. That was not the case for at times up to 15% of people where they arrived. And government officials, like I said, were not fully sure whether those people had the right to enter the country under the existing exclusion laws. So by this time, it wasn't just Chinese people. There were a lot of categories of people who were not allowed into the United States. So, for example, women. If women came by themselves, officials immediately suspected that they might either engage in prostitution or that they would not be able to pay their own way, that they would become a public charge. So they would detain them in Ellis island until the women could prove that a man that was already in the United States or a family that was already in the United States would take care of them. While this investigation happened, the women would be kept in Ellis Island. Conditions in Ellis island for those detained there very much resembled a prison. People were not allowed to leave the building. Oftentimes the windows were barred. They were pretty awful.

A (26:19)

I want to get a little bit more into what immigration is like today vis a vis the past. Can you tell us a little bit more about how the history of immigration from Mexico and Central America has evolved over time?

B (26:34)

Mexican migration to the United States began in the late 19th century. At the time, there were no laws that barred Mexicans from coming into the United States. Then migration increased until the 1930s. There was actually a net outflow of Mexican migrants. Mexicans were deported in massive numbers during the Great Depression.

A (26:54)

Why?

B (26:55)

There was massive unemployment. And the government blamed migrants, as it has done in more recent years, for that unemployment. They also were blamed for using the existing welfare resources of America. So when a Mexican immigrant came, no matter how long they had lived in the country, and asked for money, the welfare organization would call immigration officials to deport them. At the same time, many Mexicans left simply because they couldn't find jobs and because the treatment that they received became much worse as a result of the Depression. Mexicans only returned to America in 1942, when they were actually recruited by the US government. When the Second World War breaks out, America realizes, oh, no, now we need workers. Let's bring Mexicans. So they create this bilateral agreement with the United States called the Bracero program, by which Mexicans could come for short periods of time, work in the United States, and then return to Mexico. A guest worker program. And with that, Mexican migration increased dramatically until 1964, when the Bracero program ends.

A (28:06)

Tell me more about what happened then. When people who were accustomed to coming via this program, they were accustomed to being guest workers, come and work on a farm or wherever they were going to work, and then they would return home when the season was over, they were accustomed to this is how they fed their families. And then that program ends, and we began seeing an increase in unauthorized border crossings. What was the United States's response, you know, beginning in the 1960s and sort of moving forward into the latter half of the 20th century?

B (28:40)

At first, the US government turns a blind eye to it. Mexicans constituted cheap labor. Farmers very much welcomed them. They were necessary for agriculture. In the 1980s, this begins to change. When Reagan was governor of California, he was very much in favor of unauthorized migrants and turned a blind eye and didn't do much. But once he became president, he came with this slogan of law and order. And suddenly he couldn't just have, you know, undocumented migrants come in such large numbers and still claim to be the government of law and order. At the same time, since 1972 in Congress, there had been debates about how to stop unauthorized migrants with groups that we traditionally associate with being from the left. It was these groups that were anti immigrant, and they were pressuring Congress to say, hey, we need to stop undocumented migration were groups that we traditionally associate more with the right employers. They were saying, like, no, no, let's keep an open border and let them come in. So kind of the opposite of what we see now in terms of Left and right.

A (29:50)

Just so I understand. In the 60s and 70s, the left was primarily in opposition to undocumented immigration, in part because of their affiliation with organized labor in the United States, whereas the right did not have that affiliation with the organized labor. They tended to be more associated with the large businesses, the large companies that benefited from the inexpensive labor costs of undocumented workers. But then what I'm hearing you say is beginning in the 1980s, when we began to implement these sort of quote, unquote law and order policies that were very popular under a very popular president, that's when we begin to see things start to shift.

B (30:38)

Exactly. Both the left and the right start to shift. So the position of labor unions and of Mexican American organizations changes dramatically. But meanwhile, the right sort of really did adopt this ideology of law and order and changed its position, you know, to argue for a more fortified US Mexico border.

A (31:00)

What was the federal response then? Beginning towards the, you know, very tail end of the 20th century. What is the federal response to, you know, this desire to sort of clamp down on the US Mexican border? What does the United States do?

B (31:15)

By 1986, they pass a major bill that continues to be the most important law concerning unauthorized migration today. It was called the Immigration Reform and Control Act. And it basically did a couple of things. First, it said that the border should be much more fortified, so it mandated Congress to direct more resources to border control. Second, it said that unauthorized migrants who already lived in the United States and who had been living in the United States for more than five years, or farm workers who had been working in farms for over 90 days could legalize their status. This, of course, was to satisfy Mexican American organizations while at the same time keeping employers content. Because the part that didn't keep employers content is the third part of the bill, which was, oh, we're also going to impose employer sanctions, meaning employer penalties, on employers who knowingly hire unauthorized migrants.

A (32:21)

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Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. I'm back now with Ana Raquel Minion. When did the United States really began mass detention of undocumented migrants? Because it doesn't sound like that has been a US Policy for all that long.

B (35:40)

It depends really what you consider as mass detentions. The federal immigrant detention System begins in 1892 with the opening of Ellis Island. At the same time in the West Coast Chinese immigrants who continued to come were being held in very large numbers. When we can say we see a dramatic increase, however, is after 1980. So in 1980, more than 124,000 Cubans came to the United States all at once. In that summer, Castro from Cuba announced, you know what? We sent criminals and all of those people who are coming. So Americans became very scared and anti immigrant sentiments increased dramatically. So the government came to believe, you know what? We need to ensure that this does not happen again. That movement of people from Cuba to the United States is called the Mariel Boat Lift. American policymakers said, we don't want another Mariel Boat Lift. And one of the ways that they were going to ensure that this did not happen again was through detention. It was this idea, you know what? If we imprison the people who are coming, we will deter future migrants from wanting to set sail just like these migrants.

A (37:04)

Did you have a chapter in your book called the Constitution does not apply. In what context does the Constitution not apply to people who are migrants in the United States?

B (37:18)

So when Congress allowed detention to occur on land, part of what they said also was, sure, we can now hold people who are arriving in America proper, but let's imagine legally that they're not here. So basically, this means people can be held in America in detention centers anywhere in the United States, in Illinois, for example. But the entrance held within them are considered to be outside of America, to never have entered.

A (37:47)

How do they make that work in their minds? If you're in Illinois, how does that work that you aren't in America?

B (37:54)

It's what's called the entry fiction. It's just a figment of our imagination. We imagine that the people are not here.

A (38:02)

That seems like a great public policy.

B (38:04)

It's interesting. It's a law that passed in 1891, but that continues to have a hold on how we treat those who are apprehended at the border to this day.

A (38:14)

How do we know who is subject to this entry fiction doctrine versus people who are in the United States who do have constitutional rights to whom the Constitution does apply? What is the logic that the United States government uses to separate people into those categories where they are stopped?

B (38:33)

So to not have rights to be considered, quote unquote, an entrant, you have to have been stopped at the border. Then you are imagined to never have entered the United States. So an asylum seeker comes to America. People who seek asylum have a right to seek asylum so they can appear at a processing center, let's say, in Laredo they asked for asylum? Well, they're still considered not to have entered, even if they're already in the US Side of the border. And so those folks are subject to the entry fiction. Now, if someone crosses the border, manages not to be apprehended, reaches la, for example, and then is apprehended and detained, they do have rights. They're considered unauthorized migrants. They're not considered entrants.

A (39:27)

I would love to hear you compare where the United States is right now in terms of anti immigrant sentiment, in terms of the way our laws are currently structured. Can you compare where we are to where we were in the past?

B (39:46)

It's hard to say which period was worse and which one is better. But we do know that there are periods where it's been partitioned particularly hard to be an immigrant. The 1930s, like I said, massive expulsions, massive deportations. The period of Chinese exclusion was particularly hard. So it really has varied. But President Trump, the rhetoric that he used, increased anti immigrant sentiment to levels that we had not seen before his presidency in decades. We have seen better times as well. If we think about detention, there have been periods from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s, for instance, where the government actively spoke against immigrant detention and tried to move away from it, where the Supreme Court said, look, this is what enlightenment looks like. These are the qualities of an enlightened civilization. That was a quote to not detain people. Now we have very much moved away from the idea that detention is not necessary, when in fact, detention is not providing us with any safety. It's not deterring migrants from coming. You know, people have still kept on coming. It is a very dire period at the moment.

A (41:07)

Can we point to a time in history when anti immigrant sentiment has led us to a better place? Can you point to a time when something, you know, really positive has occurred as a result of the inflammation of anti immigrant sentiment? Because it seems to me, and I'm ready to be corrected, that has always led us to a place of more political violence. It's always led us to a place of increased hate groups. It's always led us to a place of a civil and economic unrest because the United States economy, like it or not, whatever the words coming out of somebody's mouth is, the United States economy is dependent on immigrants. It was built on immigrant labor, and it remains dependent on immigrant labor. And I'm just curious if I'm missing something. Is there a time where we're like, you know what? It was really good that we did that thing.

B (42:06)

I've studied immigration now for 20 years. I also can't think of a single instance of that happening. Yes, anti immigrant sentiment has, like you said, increased violence made us much more angry as a country separated us. It has definitely made the lives of immigrants harder. But what's surprising is that it has never given the people who demand them the solutions that they want. When we blame immigrants for violence, when it's known that migrants are actually much less violent, part of what it does is it doesn't allow us to tackle the actual problems that we have as a society. It doesn't allow us to tackle Covid the way it should be tackled. It doesn't allow us to tackle unemployment the way it should be tackled. So not only does it make America worse because of this violence that it creates, but also because it doesn't allow us to come up with proper solutions to our problems. Scapegoating doesn't allow for that.

A (43:05)

Thanks to Ana Raquel Minion. You can get her book in the Shadow ofliberty@bookshop.org or wherever you get your books. And be sure to read our weekly magazine at the preamble.com, it's free. Join hundreds of thousands of readers who still believe understanding is an act of hope. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buckparks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. Thanks for listening.