Good morning, everyone. My name, happy saturday. Welcome. The immigration quota act. A century later, groups and long shadows. My name is magdalena marie nati and im a stay with Adolphus College in minnesota. Im currently the president of the Immigration History Society and i coedited with erika lee, a special issue of the journal of history on the origins and of 1924, from which this panel has drawn before. I introduce our presenters today i would like to briefly describe what the 1924 immigration act was. Those of you might not be familiar with it also being taped. So i think our audience will be really interested in that. The 1924 immigration act banned entry of most immigrants from because they were ineligible to naturalize it imposed. National origins quotas on immigrants the eastern sphere to reduce immigration, eastern and Southern Europe and it several categories for exclusion and deportation. While policymakers under pressure from business interest in the southwest exempted immigrants from the western hemisphere from the quota system, they passed the labor appropriation two days later to create the u. S. Border patrol to monitor the nations in line with the labor demands of the country. This meant that while mexicans for example did fall under the quota system, the introduced administrative regulation to omit them, exclude them or deport them as our presenter presenters today will show the act was a culmination of a decade long efforts to create an immigration regime that admitted only desirable immigrants in fact, by the 1920s, Immigration Laws had become tools of social engineering. A nation that intersected with the dispossessed and coerced assimilation. Native americans intersected with the segregation and disenfranchisement. Black americans, the invasive of welfare recipients and impoverished communities and imperial projects, home and abroad. The 1924 immigration act remains one of the most consequential Immigration Congress has ever passed, and how we think about immigration today. So, for example, the idea of quotas or early caps are completely accepted. While the 1924 arc act made both of those possible, it is now pleasure to introduce todays presenters, the order in which they will speak each of them will have about 10 minutes. I will be very strict about this to deliver their remarks. I will then open the floor for discussion. I look forward to a robust and engaging conversation about one of the most critical developments in century u. S. History. Our first presenter is kevin kenny, who is glucksmann, professor of history at new york university. His books include making of the mogae, Molly Maguires get american irish a history Peaceable Kingdom lost the pakistan boys and the destruction of William Penns holy experiment. Diaspora. A very short introduction and. The problem of immigration in a slaveholding policing mobility. In the 19th century United States, for which he received two awards yesterday. Professor kenney is, a distinguished lecturer of the organization of american historians, and he served as president of the immigration ethnic History Society from 2021 to 2024. Our next presenter will carl lindskoog, is always associate professor of history ireton valley community. Hes the author of detain and punish haitian refugees and the rise of the Worlds Largest immigration detention system is also written. Sanctuary is justice, resilience and ingenuity. In the Sanctuary Movement. Since 1986, a chapter in whose america Us Immigration policies 1980 aided by Maria Cristina and me our next presenter will be yale. Thank you. Shaker is a he. Shes a historian of law and policy who has worked at refugees international, a Nonprofit Research and Advocacy Organization in washington, dc since 2019. Her work as Senior Advocate for the United States and for the americas and europe at i sorry i refugees has allowed her to build upon her Academic Specialties on the history of asylum in the United States and the relationship of immigration policy to Foreign Policy and refugees. Yale has researched written about such topics as the us, guatemala cooperative agreement, haitian migration in the americas, the history of the use of Parole Authority in the United States and difficulty iraqi and afghan refugees have united with family members in europe and the United States. She received her phd in american from Harvard University in 2016 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the institute for historical studies at the university of texas austin, 2017 2018. Her book, the history of asylum in the u. S. Since the 19 century, will be in 2025. We cant wait. Our last presenter is, seema sohi, who is associate professor of ethnic studies and a faculty affiliate in the department of history at the university of colorado, boulder. Her book echoes of mutiny, race, surveillance and anticolonialism in north america, examines the radical anticolonial politics of south asian intellectuals. Migrant workers based in north america during the early 20th century, as well as. The entire imperial efforts of us and british states to repress them. She has also published essays and articles in the journal of the American History formations emory asia journal of modern european history and the anthologies the sun never sets south asian migrants in an age of us power and asianamerican literature in transition. She also she served as the chair of the board of directors of sada, the south asian digital archive from 2017 to 2020. Please join in welcoming all of them. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks. Being here at this hour on a saturday. This. This emerged, as you know, from special issue of the journal of American History on the origins and consequences of the restriction laws a century ago. Thank you, maddalena marinari. And erika lee as the editors who us through that process. My brief was to look at the concepts personal statutory and origins, immigration restriction the 19th century. So i covered the earlier when slavery and westward expansion were the dominant themes in American History just to get a sense of how we might trace the origins of National Authority over immigration in the first place. Im just going to share with you how my contribution helped us understand what became possible by the 1920s. Attempt at the end on how it also helps us understand aspects of the Immigration Crisis in the United States today. But i hope well get to that in q a. My main argument in this piece was the existence, abolition and legacies of slavery more than any other consideration shaped American Immigration policy as it moved from the local to the state to the National Level before the civil war. Congress played almost no role in regulating the admission or expulsion of immigrants with the exception of a naturalization policy and some passenger laws. And strangely, for a country that has attracted more immigrants from more places than any other country in the history of the world, the constant tution says nothing about immigration. We this, but its still something we need to confront. The constitution says nothing about the admission, exclusion or expulsion of immigrants. It does empower congress to come with a uniform policy naturalization. Pretty much the same policy we have in place today. A waiting period of probation periods. Evidence of good character. An oath renouncing foreign allegiance. With, of course, those huge that to be eligible had to be a free white person. Not until 1870 was the right to natural allies. Extended to people of african origin or descent. Not until the 1940s and 1950s could asian immigrants be owned. This one provision in the constitution, the federal government was involved in regulating mobility in important ways through the fugitive slave laws, for example, through the removal of free African Americans abroad, the socalled colonization movements, through the massive relocation of native americans, through homestead policies that favored white settlers, immigrants. But when it came to immigration in its familiar sense. Towns, states, cities control, their own border and set their rules for Community Membership and used their police power to do to do that in the northeast, they used their power to exclude or remove foreign paupers. In the old northwest, they used similar techniques to regulate the movement of free black into territories and states across the south, in eight states. If you were a free black sailor, a arriving slave, the port of charleston, either from england or the or from massachusetts it, was mandated that you would remain in jail for the duration of your stay, either in the county jail or on board ship. So what im arguing the article is the control over foreign immigration of the movement of africanamerican cousins remain tightly intertwined throughout the antebellum period. When the Supreme Court looked challenges to state laws, they tended to dance around the issue than confront it directly. Because if the Supreme Court invalidated a state law controlling the arrival of irish in massachusetts for southerners were looking very carefully at that. They were looking at what the court would do because if you place that kind of power up in National Plans under the commerce power of the constitution, youre opening up the potential regulate the movement of free black people between the states the interstate slave trade potentially slavery itself. So theres really a constitutional that i dont think can be resolved before the civil war. Civil is a turning point in American Immigration history, beginning with cultural prohibition act. The act to encourage in 1864, by 1875, the court has no difficulty declaring unanimously that immigration is federal matter. Its in the hands of congress under the commerce. They could never do that. When slavery existed, thats the argument im making. The one thing i want to caution is, while it is true that civil war abolition removes the political and constitutional obstacles to a National Immigration, it did not make policy inevitable because if you perform a quick counterfactual and you imagine that slavery had been abolished a generation or two earlier. Congress would not have stepped in and restricted immigration numerically. People didnt like the irish, so nobody was calling for them to be excluded numerically. Theres no theres no call for numerical restriction of europeans until until later in the 19th century. So there has to be historical contention. See, that is the arrival of chinese immigrants in the same period. So its through chinese exclusion that a National Immigration policy emerges. The catalyst is the arrival of chinese laborers. The response in the page act 1875, the chinese exclusion act, the scott act of 1888. There are precedents in American History for how chinese immigrants treated other americans in the antebellum south. Had to carry papers had to present them on demand, could be deported, removed out of state, could be excluded were subject Corporal Punishment if they violated the law. So this precedent smelled in a strict legal sense but in a practical sense a third level the case you almost championed versus the United States 1889. The chinese exclusion case, the Supreme Court ruled that control over immigration was an inherent attribute of National Sovereignty. As read, it is in effect an extra constitutional power. Theres nothing in the constitution, you dont have to go to the text of the constitution to find that power. It is a fundamental attribute of an independent nation to control its borders. That may seem selfish, evident to us today. Well, its not selfevident to the supreme today that. The the origins of that form of control lie in chinese exclusion. Thats the point making. That power inherent in the sovereignty of nations will allocate to the socalled political of government. The legislative the executive with minimal interference by the court by the court system. Thats we know as the planetary power doctrine, plenary power doctrine, as articulated with chinese, as the specific. Whats the basis for trump versus hawaii . That that was the basis which the power was upheld. Okay. To conclude i have 1 minutes. Perfect. The chinese immigration folds in two separate category of law when teaching, we really need to be clear that two pieces of legislation were passed in 1880 to a chinese exclusion that described. General immigration act, which in effect extend to the National Level what had been done at the state level. And he wrote accurately in the room, and he wrote a book on this that. They have tax likely to become a public charge provision emerge out of the state level precedents and people begin to realize actually that the National Government can do this more effectively. The argument in the northeast is if state laws are invalid, whos going to pay . The argument in the west is courts are going to overturn state level discriminatory measures against chinese. Well, lets Pressure Congress to do a more thorough job. I want to conclude on the point that the claim to control immigration rests on a claim by the National Government to sovereignty over National Territory in that territory, there were hundreds of autonomous semiautonomous tribal nations with their own conception of sovereignty and we can trace how Immigration Law and native american law through plenary power unfold in tandem. Its no coincidence really then that the indians act and immigration restriction of 1924 coincide with a one week of each other. Thank so much. Morning, everyone. Thank you, maddalena, for hosting facilitating and to my fellow panelists and also maddalena and erika for inviting me to participate in this journey American History discussion. I was really honored to be included and i am still honored today. So perspective on the roots in, the long shadows of the immigration acts of 21 and 24, 1921, 24, and now 100 years after, 1924 is through the lens of the states practice of detention and incarceration. I came this work through my research. Haitian Asylum Seekers and the States Development of a detention system to exclude them and control them. And how laid the foundation for our modern immigration detention and broader incarceration. But for this discussion i had just sort of followed. I tried follow the thread back through the early 20th century and since my research focuses more on the later 20th century, i have relied on the amazing scholarship of a lot of other folks who sort of established that earlier history. So what i do here is i ask, what is the function of incarceration today and how has it been used to historically eliminate unwanted people . And what does this history of incarceration and removal have to do with immigration . In 20 1924 and more recently, i also inquire into the relationship between this process and the long historical process of eliminating Indigenous People from this land process settler colonialism. And also where does this meet up with the projects of american and White Supremacy . And what i found is that throughout the 20th century and into the 21st immigration detention other forms of incarceration have been used to advance and white settler rule something that historians and historical actors sometimes called racist or racial imperial ism and. In the essay, i try to demonstrate the ways that was and remains a key part of the longer genius elegy of a white settler colonial violence that has relied on campaigns of restriction, removal and elimination. And so thats the kind of big and im advancing. And now just in the remaining 8 minutes or so, im going to try to just quickly pull out some examples, the long 20th century and, im going to skip some stuff the middle for the interest of time. But i hope that in the discussion we can return to unpack some of it more. So my students and i explore all of, you know, the u. S. Even before the u. S. , the colonial process has long deployed incarceration to achieve the goal, eliminating Indigenous People. Nick estes calls this the reservation world and all kinds of state violence and settler colonial violence have been used to advance the project of settler colonialism against Indigenous People. And kevin mentioned this others will probably talk about it this is really the Foundation Upon which immigration detention in our system of incarceration. Of course we also know that the other of the foundation is of violence and, incarceration, caging us