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U.S. Immigration Policy and Rhetoric:
The Construction of the Identity of Immigrants
Sarah Harmon
Political Science Honors Thesis
Final Draft
First Reader: Daniel Tichenor
Second Reader: Pricilla Yamin
April 27, 2009
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“The most noble and profitable invention of all other was that of speech.”
-Thomas Hobbes, 1651
Many scholars have attempted to account for the constantly changing politics that
surround U.S. immigration policies over time. My focus within immigration studies is to
critically analyzing the rhetoric associated with U.S. immigration policy making. A
rhetorical study of immigration involves the elaborate use of narratives, symbolism and
selection when discussing immigrants. Also, immigration rhetoric is kept at a distance
from the public and almost exclusive to elite debates. This unique dynamic between
powerful elites constructs an arena abundant in rhetoric. Powerful elites use rhetoric to
ascriptively define and categorize selective groups of people which shape the policies and
contexts that follow. Rhetoric is also used to justify immigration policy through the use of
generated scientific expertise. Relying on scholarship provides a logical and ideally
unbiased defense of policy choices. In addition, elites use carefully crafted rhetoric to link
immigration ideologies to popular values within the historical context. This helps one
side to gain support from other elites, confine opposition to unpopular stances, as well as
create a viable rationale for the public even though historically the public has consistently
opposed U.S. immigration policy. Rhetoric serves as a tool for elites to maintain existing
positions of power or to gain power within the immigration arena.
Introduction
Immigration has undeniably been an essential component of the history and
make-up of the United States. It has significantly and continuously shaped the landscape
of America. Immigration is a complex topic that encompasses the intersections of many
other fields such as race relations, welfare, civil rights, crime, foreign relations,
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demographics, and economics, among others. There are also strong, lasting ideological
tensions that frame the immigration arena divided between universal and egalitarian
ideals and an opposing ascriptive, inegalitarian ones. The root of these tensions is
founded in a debate over a very democratic and American issue of equality.
As I began a preliminary
exploration on the topic of
immigration I came across an
obvious conundrum that many
scholars before me had exposed,
brought to light, and attempted to
explain. This puzzle deals with
the fact that U.S. Immigration
policy often contradicts public
MPI Data Hub: Migration Facts, Stats, and Maps
http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/charts/fb.1.shtml
opinion. Another fascinating and distinctive aspect of immigration is the degree that
immigration narratives have become an essential component of the political culture of
immigration. As Lina Newton observed, “Immigrants appear simultaneously as villainous
invaders of the nation and as its heroic founders.”1 It has become a topic rich in rhetoric.
These two distinctive phenomena established a framework for my thesis. My chief aim
has been to expose the relationships between U.S. Immigration policies and the rhetoric
which surrounds them. I had hoped to account for the obvious difference between policy
and public opinion based on politicians’ use of narratives and symbolic rhetoric and
consequently offer a critique of democracy for its ability to go against public wishes by
the way of carefully crafted rhetoric.
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However, ironically (the irony will be exposed later in this paper) I dove into my
research with many presumptions and hopes to defend an already constructed conclusion
before I did any real research. My initial hypothesis was quickly shattered due to two
main realities in the scholarship of immigration policy. First, there is broad array of
academic studies and
contradicting conclusions
about the determinants of
immigration policy.
Secondly, immigration policy
not only disagrees with public
opinion, but the immigration
debate over official policy
MPI Data Hub: Migration Facts, Stats, and Maps
http://www.migrationinformation.org/datahub/charts/final.fb.shtml
itself is kept at a far distance from
the public. Consequently, immigration rhetoric takes place among the elites in
Washington and the public is figuratively deaf to it.
My research parallels immigration politics because I too had to separate my thesis
from attempting to conform to the issues of public opinion. Unable to release my
curiosity of the narrative phenomenon found in immigration, I continued in a rhetorical
analysis direction with my research. I constructed a comparative rhetorical study to
hopefully uncover some patterns or correlations between immigration policy and rhetoric.
Immigration policy over the course of U.S. history has swung back and forth from
periods of immigration restriction to those of expansion. These periods are established by
drastic changes in immigration policy. I chose to look at four significant pieces of
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legislation that marked such periods as my case studies: two from restriction periods and
two from expansion periods. The four pieces of legislation studied were the Immigration
Act of 1924, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the Immigration Act of 1990,
and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The Acts
in 1924 and 1996 are restrictionary; the 1965 and 1990 Acts were expansive. Within
these four periods I looked at the political debates that surround the pieces of legislation,
presidential statements on the bills, and also the rhetoric of the bill itself.
Immigration policies also tend to have a contextual and lasting effect on
immigration and future immigration reform. As Daniel Tichenor put it, U.S. immigration
policy has a “surprising capacity to give form and substance to new policy regimes.”2
The transformative effect of immigration policy is best understood when looking at a
larger, historical picture of immigration. Consequently, in order to construct the context
of the four periods I wish to examine, I will give brief historical accounts that set up each
policy and the history between policies to better understand the lasting consequences that
immigration policy has on the United States.
However, before jumping straight into the four cases and their historical contexts,
I will discuss the three main intersecting topics of study: rhetoric, policy design, and
immigration. I have chosen three main political theories to intersect these topics. These
three theories are: Michel Foucault’s theory on power-knowledge relations and rhetoric;
Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram’s policy design theory; and Daniel Tichenor’s theory
on immigration control.
I will set the stage for my rhetorical analysis by exploring and comparing these
three fundamental theories. Next, I will discuss my findings on public opinion, followed
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by a discussion of previous studies on immigration and rhetoric. Finally, I will present a
rhetorical and historical analysis of U.S. Immigration policy with an emphasis on the
reforms Acts in 1924, 1965, 1990, and 1996. Subsequent to these findings, I hope to
successfully argue that rhetoric is a tool for the elite to pass immigration policy that
favors their own specific agendas.
The format of this paper is set up specifically to parallel the scientific expertise
and commission reports used for immigration reforms. As we shall see those researching
for the reports all had ideological foundations before the actual studies and research took
place. Some members appointed to commissions were appointed because of their strong
ideological views on immigration. Similarly, my paper is layout begins with a theoretical
foundation and moves to the actual rhetorical analysis.
Theoretical Foundations
Rhetoric
“Words are much more than weapons. . . Language is the ground of politics:
it mediates our relation to the world.”
-Victoria Hattam, 2007
Ronald Krebs and Patrick Jackson challenged scholarship in comparative politics
to return rhetoric to the heart of political analysis. They argue that rhetoric is central to
politics; rhetorical interplay itself provides a satisfactory level of explanation when it
comes to account for policy outcomes. They argue that “language has a real causal
impact on political outcomes” through rhetorical coercion.3
Krebs and Jackson suggest that through rhetorical coercion and skillful framing,
one side leaves their opponents without socially viable or sustainable rebuttals resulting
in a specific political outcome based on one side’s ability to frame an issue.
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Skillful rhetorical maneuvering can underpin a successful political
campaign—not by persuading one’s opponents of the rectitude of one’s
substance, but by denying them the rhetorical materials out of which to
craft a socially sustainable rebuttal. Rhetorical coercion is a political
strategy that seeks to twist arms by twisting tongues.4
For Krebs and Jackson, politics is not just rhetorical contest where one side’s argument is
better than the other, but has a strong consensual aspect where rhetoric unites two or
more opposing sides because of the fear of repercussions if they do not agree based on
the framing of the primary argument. If one side is successful in framing their argument
in such a way that the opposition has no legitimate rhetorical rebuttal, then they are
compelled to consent with their opposition’s position. Skillful framing is therefore most
effective when it leaves its opposition with little “wiggle room” or few effective rebuttal
options. One side wins because of the skillful rhetoric that surrounds their argument, not
because of the validity or truth of it. The win is based on the social sustainability of their
argument.
One essential aspect of Krebs and Jackson’s theory is that political debates fall
within discursive walls of public opinion. Neither side, according to this theory, can take
a position that is not accepted by public opinion. However, in the realm of immigration,
as we shall see, policy contradicts often public opinion. This does not negate the
application of the rhetorical coercion theory from a study of immigration policy.
Consensus in immigration politics is essential to the success of policies. The rhetorical
coercion comes not from the backdrop of public opinion, but the backdrop of the
opposition’s previous statements and ideologies. In short, rhetorical coercion in
immigration happens when one side traps themselves.
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Krebs and Jackson urge scholars to refrain from attempting to center causal
accounts on “unanswerable questions about actors’ true motives” and shift rhetorical
focus to explain policy outcomes through the dynamic interplay of debate. However,
Michel Foucault believes that tracing the history of a topic or debate can expose
underlying notions of knowledge and relations of power rendering the question’s “true
motives” answerable within the grasps of a rhetorical analysis.
Michel Foucault’s proposed in his book The History of Sexuality, proposed a
theory that discourse is a technique of power and has a transformative ability to refine
and designate values to society. Foucault looks at the discursive history of sexuality to
come to this conclusion. He contends that those in power have the ability to formulate
truths and falsehoods based on the relationship between power and knowledge.5
Discourse, for Foucault, has a faculty of production. Discourse produces and propagates
notions of power and of knowledge.
This power-knowledge relationship is better examined in Foucault’s book
Discipline & Punishment. He argues that power is exercised rather than possessed
through rhetorical claims to knowledge. Rhetoric joins power and knowledge. Foucault
states that “a corpus of knowledge, techniques, ‘scientific’ discourses is formed and
becomes entangled with the practice of power . . . A whole new system of truth . . . is
exercised.”6 Power and knowledge directly imply one another.
Foucault used psychiatric expertise as an example of this power-knowledge
relationship. He claims that psychiatric expertise has been called upon since the very
beginning of its history to formulate a ‘true’ diagnosis of the patient followed by a
suggested prescription for what might cure the patient. Foucault states, “It is up to him
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[the expert] to say . . . how one should intervene to alter him [the patient].”7 This example
shows the relationship between power and knowledge: that there is no power without a
correlative constitution of a field of knowledge. But also that those in power have the
ability to further produce “truths” and “knowledge” perpetuating their positions of power
and maintaining their power-relations with others.
The rhetorical analysis should therefore emphasize a study on the one “who
knows,” not the subject or topic of knowledge. In the case of the psychiatric expert,
Foucault would argue that analyzing the experts knowledge and rhetoric and the
fundamental implications that follow would be more enlightening than the study of the
subject of knowledge. In the case of immigration, it would be more useful to study the
elites and their knowledge and expertise on immigrants rather than immigrants
themselves.
Foucault’s historical study of the penal system concluded in a general application
of power-relations, knowledge and expertise, and the effects of the power-knowledge
relation in society. Knowledge and power have a dynamic relationship. They both imply
one another; you cannot have one without the other. Knowledge extends and reinforces
power. Power constructs knowledge and what is designated as ‘true’ or ‘false’, ‘good’ or
bad’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’, etc. It is the rhetoric of those with
knowledge and power that conveys such messages to society. This power “applies itself
to immediate everyday life, categorizes the individual, marks him by his own
individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth in him that he must
recognize and other have to recognize in him. It is a form of power that makes
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individuals subjects.” Power and knowledge do not simply define individuals; they create
and subjugate them.
In Discipline & Punishment Foucault parallels our society to that of the
Bentham’s Panopticon. The Panopticon was a jail structure that was designed in such a
manner that the guards could at all times see the prisoners, but the prisoners were unable
to see the guards or other prisoners. The possibility of being seen invoked the same fear
as of actually being seen. Prisoners were consciously aware that they could be observed
at all times. The Panopticon successfully imposed control on prisoners’ behavior through
the threat of surveillance.
Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of
images, one invests bodies in depth; behind the great abstraction of
exchange, there continues the meticulous, concrete training of useful
forces; the circuits of communication are the supports on an accumulation
and a centralization of knowledge; the ply of signs defines the anchorages
of power; it is not the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated,
repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is
carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and
bodies.
Power-knowledge produces identities. Along with the production of these identities
comes the production of deviants who fail to adhere to the constructed identity. Those
who fail to live up to the standard are susceptible to discipline and punishment.
Discipline and punishment are tools to correct the abnormal behaviors and identities. “All
the mechanisms of power . . . are disposed around the abnormal individual, to brand him
and to alter him” There is a fear of not only being disciplined for abnormal behavior, but
in being observed by others for breaking away from these constructed identities that have
been woven into the fabric of a society. Power in this sense produces a homogenous
effect.
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Foucault’s general theory of power-knowledge as the production of truth and
norms is applicable to other fields of study other than the penal system. For example,
Nadine Ehlers applies Foucault’s theory to the production of race. She argues that
discursive power ‘makes’ race perceptible.
Certain traits and characteristics have become constant indicators denoting one’s
belonging or non-belonging to a particular racial group. Ehlers argues that race
classification does more than simply categorizing an individual into a racial group. Race
becomes a “practice—an ongoing discursive process of racing individuals that must be
maintained in order to survive.”8 With no ontological grounding, race discourses are
constantly being repeated in order for such categories to survive. Only when such
discourses are successfully maintained does that category take on an essence of ‘truth’
and consensus. Once produced as a truth, those who’s identify does not fit in the category
of their race groups would be viewed as deviant or abnormal.
Bodies and individuals are separated, given racial identities and assigned as
distinct and different identities through the gate-keeping mechanism of codifying, or
classifying. The power to codify and categorizing comes from kinds of knowledge.
Ehlers states, “Discourses mare the possible limits or enforce a conceptual grammar on
what kinds of knowledge can be generated in terms of race, and thus, what can be
‘known’ about race.” Not only does knowledge control the category of race, but it defines
the parameters which race can be studied and further understood.
Because of the multiple sites and forces of power and the multiple and contesting
forms of knowledge, discourse can only be understood as fracture, multiple and
contradictory. Power, for Foucault, is not top-down, like a King and his servants. Power-
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relations are a dynamic and complex social network where many are bargaining for
power. In Foucault’s words, “discourse [is] . . . a serious of discontinuous segments
whose tactical function is neither stable nor uniform.” 9 Multiple and competing ‘truths’
exist simultaneously only to complicate the matter.
This complication of ‘truth’ confuses and distances the subjected individual from
being able to locate and understand the power that subjectifies him or her. This form of
power is very subliminal, although prevalent. This is a form of power that produces
reality. It “produces domains of objects and rituals of truth.” Ehlers explains that
technology claims the power ‘to make’; rhetoric is a technique of power to produce a
subject. The power of subjugation both denotes the subordination of the individual
through external control and pressure of society, but also the defining process is attached
to an individual’s identity to the ‘self’ therefore enforcing internal control as well. This
power is productive in that it constructs the individual and juridical in the in as an
external affect on the individual.
These identities are necessitated through the process of normalization. Individuals
are “compared, differentiated, hierarchized, homogenized (into set ‘types’), and in which
the abnormal is defined.” No individual is immune to this form of power. This form of
power is prevalent within the political field. Norms have been generated within the
political realm through legislators, scientists and interests groups, to name a few. These
norms then construct a homogenize target group and treat the group according to its
constructed identity. This form of power not only constructs, but it enforces, and then
also perpetuates its notions of truth and maintenance of power.
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From Foucault, we see the significance and importance of the study of rhetoric
and the possible power relations and intentions that rhetoric exposes. With a rhetorical
analysis of immigration, those power relations are intended to be exposed. Also, the
relation between knowledge and power is significant in immigration policy as well as in
Foucault’s theory. As Tichenor argues, scientific expertise is one of the fundamental
factors to immigration policy. However, this scientific expertise is far from the ideal,
pure, unbiased strict scientific work. Rather the scientific expertise is produced with
intentions presupposing the research. This exploitation of knowledge occurs with
immigration when one side wishes to have an influential impact on policy they bring new
or more persuasive scientific expertise arguments to the table arguing for their side.
Finally, when knowledge plays out in discourse, it has the capacity, according to
Foucault, to create identities in which people are categorized and consequently created
by. In immigration we see not only the creation of categories to place groups of
immigrants in, but we see their identities being constructed as well.
Policy Design
“Public policies are the mechanisms through which values are
authoritatively allocated society.”
-Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider, 1996
Anne Ingram and Helen Schneider took on the challenging task to propose a
public policy design to explain the path that policies follow in democracy in their work
Policy Design for Democracy. Ingram and Schneider dismiss popular policy theories
such as the pluralism theory, the scientific approach theory, public choice theory, and
critical and democratic theory. They claim that policy theories have too narrowly focused
orientations for explaining policy outcomes.
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Policies are designed and produced through a complicated process that regularly
involves many different people and many different and often conflicting goals. This
complicated process is not best described by any of the above mentioned policy theories,
but rather by Ingram and Schneider’s Degenerative Policy Design theory. Their theory
contains five main elements: target populations, goal or problems to be solved, rules,
rationales, and assumptions.10
Ingram and Schneider’s define policy designs as degenerative in their theory.
They believe that policies deceive, confuse and discourage active engagement from
citizens. This effect is perpetuated and exacerbated by the continued separation and
disengagement of the public. The result is citizens become disconnected from policy and
Source: Policy Design For Democracy, Ingram and Schneider, 1996
government which leaves “issues to experts who rely on scientific studies to determine
both the ends and the means of policy.” This disconnect allows politicians to arrange
policy in order to serve particular values, purposes, and interests.
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Policies fit into their historical context. The “context is probably the most
important predictor of what type of design with follow.” Policy arrangements cannot
escape the value dimensions within a society. Designs are carefully crafted and tailored to
fit a context. Therefore, the conception and framing of the context is not only a
production, but a foundational aspect of policy design. However, policies have the
capacity to affect and change meanings, interpretations and values in a society and
ultimately policies have the power to alternate the context, according to this theory.
Policies are dynamically produced by their context and furthermore they dynamically
impact context. They do this through the framing of goals and problems, social
constructions of target groups, and the social construction of knowledge. More
specifically, Ingram and Schneider argue that “analysis of policy designs reveal that the
social construction of target populations and the social construction of knowledge are
embedded within designs themselves and therefore the processes that produce these
constructions must be important causal determinants of policy design.”11
Target groups are defined by policy designers as “deserving” or “undeserving”.
This social construction then interacts with the group’s level of political power to
determine what benefits or burdens a target group will get from policy. The table below is
a visual representation of the interaction between a target group’s construction and their
level of political power. Those with a lot of power and a positive construction are likely
to receive benefits from policy. Conversely, the groups that are politically weak and have
a negative or “undeserving” construction are very unlikely to receive benefits but would
be very likely to receive punishments or burdens. Social constructions are a matter of
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pigeonholing and categorizing, rather than diagnosing or creatively engaging with a
group’s self-defined identity.
Power relationships
are essential to policy
design. Power determines
which actions constitute
political opportunities and
which ones are politically
risky. Therefore, power
constrains politicians to
Source: Policy Design For Democracy, Ingram and
Schneider, 1996
pass policy based on the
construction and the power of target groups. For example, there is a greater political risk
to give “undeserving” groups benefits; there is more political opportunity to give
“undeserving” groups burdens. Policy designs construct social groups and then
perpetuate their construction through policy. Policy serves as a kind of symbolic message
that propagates the constructed identity of target groups. Policy also exacerbates the
existing inequalities within political power relations. Therefore, policy can be a tool to
maintain power inequalities.
Policy designs have effects on the context of the policy, the target group’s identity
involved in the policy, and the outcome of the policy. After the framing of a problem or
goal, identifying and defining a target group, and a policy is presented, politicians use
policy tools to persuade others to action and to comply with the way policies will affect
them and others. Tools can affect messages and values depending on how they are used.
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Policy tools consist of reliance on authority, inducements or sanctions, capacity-building,
and/or hortatory tools. Hortatory tools serve to persuade through proclamations to
influence values, or through education and learning which will solidify the problem or
goal and issue and reduce uncertainty with the proposed policy. Hortatory tools motivate
people based on images, symbols, and values. Hortatory tools also label and stigmatize
images of groups or ideals. Through hortatory portrayals negative images can become
positive ones or vice versa.
Another aspect of policy design is rationales. Rationales are the explanations or
justification for the policy itself. They link “design elements to context, making explicit
claims that the design is responsive to the issue and will have positive effects.” Certain
rationales are credible only under certain contexts. Rationales explain how the policy will
solve problems or reach specific goals. Additionally, rationales argue that policy will be
good to public interest, fair and just, benefit economic or scientific progress, bring law
and order, and so on and so forth. Rationales legitimize policy.
The important dynamic of degenerative policy design is focused on the fact that
the politically powerful construct issues, target groups and solutions based on a
calculation for political gain or loss. Politicians then act on policies not necessarily
because the meet their rationale for being “good” for America, but because they are
“good” for the politician and they either gain or maintain political power through policy
design. Ingram and Schneider state, “Policy is often rhetorical.” Social constructions,
hortatory skills and rationales are essential to policy; rhetoric then becomes an
indispensable instrument for politicians within policy design.
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Ingram and Schneider offer another theory for policy design. Instead of
degenerative design which relies on power and constructions of target groups, they
propose a Scientific and professional policy design. A scientific model of design
intuitively has a foundation upon scientific expertise to frame a problem and propose a
solution using the scientific method.
Science claims to take a high road when it comes to politics. Science is able to
escape the world or politics; a world popularly associated with notions of power,
manipulation, narrow and special interests, corruptions, and individual goals. Moreover,
society has a very high regard for science, technology and methods of reasoning and
logic. Science appears to offer an unbiased, dispassionate solution to policy problems by
using scientific design to create public policy that takes on a utilitarian notion that argues
that the policy would be good for America.
Science and logical reasoning often serve as rationales for policy by politicians.
This exposes the political safety and security that comes from relying on science as a
legitimate validation for policy choices. However ideal scientific policy design appears,
Ingram and Schneider argue that science does not escape the bias, passionate world of
politics. Instead of social constructions of target groups in policy design, there are social
constructions of knowledge in a scientific or professional policy design. This construction
of knowledge even further distance the public from government and active citizenship
through the emergence of elite corps of experts and seemingly indecipherable scientific
language.
The construction of knowledge is a process that parallels that of image
construction as discussed with target groups. Scientists depict themselves as crusaders in
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the search of truth. However, Ingram and Schneider argue, “Scientists have developed
considerable skill in pinning down elusive figures, traces, inscriptions, and in the art of
persuasion. The latter skill enables them to convince others that what they are doing is
important and what they say is true.” The questions and the answers addressed by
scientific research never undergo a valuative discourse that scrutinizes the significance of
the scientific endeavors. Science does not appear to need a valuative discourse to justify
itself. Rather the “values dear to scientists become everyone’s values.” In this sense,
knowledge is not discovered, but created and constructed in a similar fashion to the social
constructions of identity. Ingram and Schneider are suspect of the impartialness of the
scientific and professional policy design theory.
These two models for policy design at times intersect. Elected leaders may
attempt to argue that the facts or scientific reasoning gave them no choice in the matter.
Alternatively, politicians seek after their own experts to get the results and consequently
the rationale they want in order to implement a policy. These designs, whether scientific
or not, are instrumental in the social production of values and identities. These
productions are often means of following a hidden agenda or for gaining political power.
Ingram and Schneider construct a critical democratic critique with their work on
policy design. They argue that policy “teaches lessons about what groups people belong
to, the characteristics of the groups with which people identify, what they deserve from
government, and what is expected of them.” Policy design is also a continuous succession
of distancing the public from policy, leaving policy to the experts.
Previous immigration rhetoric research has been done using Ingram and
Schneider’s work. In her book Illegal, Alien, or Immigrant, Lina Newton looks at the
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political rhetoric which surrounds Immigration Reform Acts in the 1980s and 1990s by
applying Ingram and Schneider’s Policy Design and social construction of target groups
theories. Her discursive analysis looks at the social construction of illegal immigrants.
Her work highlights the use of narratives and myths within Immigration with a specific
emphasis on illegal immigration. Newton argues that narratives are more than just
political theater, but that theses narratives are purposefully used in policy making.
Narratives actively construct immigrants as a whole and divisions or groups within
immigrants.
Ingram and Schneider’s policy design theories expose the generation of target
groups that presuppose policy. Arguably, this generation of target groups is an example
of Michel Foucault’s theories presented above. Those in power, those who create and
influence immigration policy, create target groups in order to justify legislation. This
creation of target groups is identity creation and categorization by the powerful. Ingram
and Schneider argue that the categories that are the foundation of policy are substantial to
not only the policy, but to the ways in which groups consequently interact with politics.
Ingram and Schneider’s theory interacts and compliments Foucault’s as presented above.
In the case of immigration studies, it calls for one to look at how and why target groups
are created in order to create policies.
Immigration
“Immigration is perhaps the most enduring and
elemental leitmotif of America.”
-Daniel Tichenor, 2002
After an extensive historical study of U.S. Immigration, Daniel Tichenor observed
a pendulum-like pattern in immigration policies, swinging from restrictionary policies to
expansionary policies. These shifts demonstrate the ever-changing, unstable nature of
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immigration politics in the United States. Many scholars have attempted to account for
these drastic changes in policy, but have proven inadequate. Theories based on
economics, social interests, national values and electoral alignments all fail to explain
immigration policy. Tichenor states, “Each of these rubrics has at least some merit as an
explanatory variable, but each is ultimately inadequate for solving” the immigration
puzzle. Their shortfall comes from attempts to reduce explanation into a single cause.
Tichenor explains that there is sufficient evidence to discredit all four popular
immigration theories. Immigrants and the economy have unquestionably been connected
rhetorically. During periods of economic recessions and depressions, immigrants often
become the scapegoats for the distressed economic situation in the country. However,
immigration restriction policies have been enforced during both good and bad economic
times.
Also, pluralist explanations that argue that the most powerful sitting at the table
win, fall short of explaining immigration politics. American immigration reform “often
highlights the extent to which some powerful groups lose while others win.” Therefore
discrediting such a social interest based account. A national value argument is also
inconclusive. As we shall see later, immigration politics is the clash of two main political
ideologies, both arguing that one side is more “American” than the other.
Lastly, electoral realignments are unconvincing as well. In fact, immigration
reform legislation tends to win by landslide vote counts, crossing party lines and
sustaining coalitions that endure party divisions. These four popular theories each
maintain a significant effect on immigration policies, but do not play the sole role in
determining or explaining immigration political outcomes.
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Tichenor introduces a historical-institutionalist analysis of immigration politics
that places a framework emphasizing four interlocking processes that elucidate both
expansionary and restrictive patterns and transformation in immigration politics. These
four processes are: political institutions and governmental structures; coalitions; the role
of expertise; and international threats or crisis.12
Ingram and Schneider state that institutions are not simply a collection of rules
and structures. More accurately, “institutions have values, norms, and ways of operating
that define an institutional culture.”13 Tichenor agrees that institutions are not neutral and
consequently provide unequal access and leverage to specific actors and groups. Equally
as salient in institutions within immigration policies is the conscious attempt to build and
maintain institutional roadblocks and barriers for opposition and supports for their own
policy regimes.
Coalitions have been an important aspect of immigration reform. Immigration is
not a party-bound tension. In fact, immigration has divided parties. Liberal-conservative
coalitions have been crucial to immigration reform and the passage of major immigration
bills. Without these bipartisan coalitions, major reforms would arguably be impossible.
Privileged expertise has been incredibly important in immigration policy.
Whether immigrants are good or bad for America has been a fundamental debate
regarding immigration politics. Academic and professional expertise frames the
immigration issue, but it also creates immigration narratives that shape and create policy
responses. Immigration politics often seeks out its own “experts” and privileged specific
studies to construct policy.
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Finally, international crises or threats have set the global context for immigration
reform. This process serves as a catalyst for major reform. International developments
alter the “incentives and capacities of political actors to break stalemates.” What is
interesting about this aspect of immigration politics is that specific policy reforms and
responses are often crafted and constructed before any major crisis or threat even
transpires. Those who produced policy reforms take advantage of the global threat or
crisis and attempt to utilize the global context to achieve immigration policy goals.
Through a historical analysis with these four processes in mind, Tichenor flushes
out the complex subject of immigration politics and guides his readers through the history
of immigration. Tichenor’s work is crucial to this study because he effectively tells the
story of the history of immigration politics. He also sets the context for the policy reforms
and clearly depicts how powerful actors involved in the immigration issue unite and
oppose one another; ultimately, how the elite interact when it comes to immigration.
Public Opinion and Elites
Constant opinion polls throughout the last century have revealed two main, steady
attitudes between the public and their opinions on immigration. The first is that the
majority of the public have a negative view on immigrants who desire to come into the
United States. The second is that the issue of immigration has rarely, not until recently,
been a high-priority issue for the public.
Rita Simon and Susan Alexander studied immigration and its relation to the media
and public opinion in their book The Ambivalent Welcome. Their range of study began in
the 1880’s and concluded in 1990. They explain
24
The most consistent theme that emerges from all of the public opinion
surveys is the essentially negative attitudes held by a majority of the U.S.
public toward persons wishing to come to the United States. Whether the
polls were conducted during the 1930s, a period of severe economic
depression, or during the 1960s, a time of economic growth and
prosperity, public support for increasing the number of immigrants
permitted to settle in the United States has remained low.14
As Theodore Hesburgh, Chief of the Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee
Policy aptly observed that “it is the most human thing in the world to fear strangers.”15
Public opinion polling data supported this claim. As presented in the table below, a
majority of the public has consistently been uneasy about increasing immigration. In fact,
in a Gallup poll in May of 1980, 66% of the population wished to halt immigration
altogether.16
Source: Dividing Lines, Daniel Tichenor, 2002
Coupled with a negative perspective on immigration, Americans have not
considered immigration a high-priority issue. In a summary presented by the Gallup
Poles, it explains that immigration has been a negligible issue in the U.S. throughout
history. It states, “There is no evidence to suggest that immigration, either legal or illegal,
is a high-priority issue for the average American.”17 In a public opinion poll by the Roper
Center, “Illegal Immigration” was considered by only 1% of the population as one of the
most important issues facing America at that time.18
25
There are two other significant patterns found in public opinion worth
mentioning. First, there is an elitist divide on immigration opinions. The more income a
person makes and the more education one has, the more likely he or she is to have a
favorable perspective on immigration. Those in a higher status are less threatened by
immigrants. They do not fear that immigrants will come and take away job opportunities
for themselves or for their children. Those within a lower socioeconomic class or of a
minority category both tend to be strongly anti-immigrant. According to Alexander and
Simon “Immigrants compete with them for jobs, housing, benefits, and their children’s
place in institutions of higher learning.” There is a clear divide between elites and the
lower classes opinions on immigration.
Another interesting pattern in public opinion is the public’s likelihood to fear
“new” classes of immigrants more than older ones. This pattern is depicted in a poll that
asks whether Americans believe immigrants are good or bad for the country. The results
illustrate that “older” immigrant groups, or groups who have been in the United States for
a longer period of time, have a tendency to receive more positive assessments then do
immigrant groups that have more recently immigrated. In short, “The more recent the
arrival, the higher is the percentage of respondents who rate them as bad for the United
States.”19
Conclusively, “anticipated immigrants and the prospect of higher immigration
levels is not, and has never been a popular issue with the U.S. public.”20 The general
public fears increased immigration and new immigration. This fear is most prevalent in
lower-classes of Americans. Elites have a contrasting opinion and are less anxious
regarding immigrants and tend to have a more positive attitude towards immigrants.
26
Additionally, the immigration issue is ‘back-burnered’ for the public. American’s tend to
focus on other issues that they believe are more prevalent and salient in the American
Agenda.
Immigration is a source of heated debate among elites. This official policy
debates are insulated from the public and occurs almost in totality among elites. It
provides a stage of rhetorical debates among these elites. The political arena of
immigration takes place on a battlefield out of view from the public. There is also an
explanatory rhetorical nature in immigration. After the intense elitist debates have
resulted in immigration policy, politicians must then explain their policy choices to the
public.
Previous Work
Most of the academic work done that focuses on the relationship between rhetoric
and immigration lies in the analysis of rhetoric of the presidents or the relationship of
immigrant and the media.21 These books deal with the rhetorical representation of
immigrants and the phenomena of two contradicting immigration narratives that are used
to describe immigrants. One narrative describes the immigrant in a good way as a hardworking, heroic figure that the American dream is founded. The other, contradicting
narrative portrays immigrants as bad for America due to being lazy, welfare-dependent,
free-loading individuals who came to America to milk the system.
Lina Newton looks more deeply at the social construction of these narratives. She
states that following thousands of pages of transcripts, only a handful of narratives in the
political realm are present. She focuses on the two reforms in 1986 and 1996 that are
arguable restrictive policies. These policies negatively construct illegal immigrants and
27
place burdens upon them as a group. The policies included strong border control and
border fortifications as well as restricting benefits from legal and illegal immigrants and
their children. In fact, because of the 1996 act an “estimated 935,000 legal immigrants,
many of whom were either minors or had been admitted legally as refugees, were cut off
from food stamps.”22 Newton looks at the rhetorical debates that surround these policies
to expose the negative construction of immigrants that resulted in such a severe policy for
immigrants.
Newton argues that through narratives politician’s stigmatized immigrants as bad
and deviant. This construction gave rationale to policies. Narratives become a factor in
immigration policy. As Newton puts it, stories become the “currency of Congress.” These
stories played a fundamental role in how policymakers understand the problem and
propose a solution.
The debates that surrounded the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act of 1996 showed minimal struggle in comparison to the 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act over the construction of illegal immigrants as
negative and criminal. Rather, there was a consensus among those debating that
immigrants were criminal and detrimental to society. This consensus was the difference
between the severities of the 1996 Act in comparison to the 1986 Act. Social
constructions predicate policy.
In her conclusion, Newton argues that narratives and images easily collapse
depending on the context of the narrative. She states, “Images of toiling, deserving
immigrants easily collapse when economic times are difficult.” Newton also supposes
28
that “stories often replace studies.” These two statements are the foundation for my
critique on Newton.
First, Newton discusses two rather closely connected reforms and the rhetoric that
surrounds them. She fails to adequately describe the context in which these narratives are
prevalent. Over a short ten year difference she observes the shifts in rhetoric, but does not
account for the contextual changes during those times. Stories hold different significances
in different contexts. A more contextual emphasis should be place in Newton’s work.
Second, Newton fails to give any weight to scientific studies or expertise in
immigration politics. She argues that stories are more important. However, those
scientific studies that Newton disregards are the framework for the stories. Immigration
studies, as argued by Tichenor and to be further emphasized in this paper, are crucial to
immigration policies. Finally, Newton fails to expose overall patterns of immigration and
rhetoric with such a by narrowly focusing on a short time frame and concentrating on
illegal immigration without even glancing at refugee or legal immigration reforms.
Newton does however deal with issues of social construction of illegal immigrants very
well.
Rhetorical Analysis
Immigration necessarily needs to be looked at historically because of the
profound effect that previous policies have on the future of immigration policy. Tichenor
displays this in his historical account of immigration. His book connects the politics and
history of immigration. It is described as “one of the best books on U.S. Immigration
policy to appear” 23 by Martin Shefter from Cornell University.24
29
Roger Williams said: “When you have crossed over the black brook of some soul
bondage yourself, leave a plank for distressed souls who come after you.”25 In the case of
understanding immigration, Dividing Lines is the plank left by Daniel Tichenor so that
distressed souls such as myself who wish to understand immigration politics can more
easily flush through the complexities that characterizes immigration politics in the U.S.
Accordingly, I cite much of Tichenor’s work as a foundation to better understand the
context, history, and the power formations of immigration.
The Immigration Act of 1924
History:
“This [act] is a life-and-death struggle . . . The effect
of the passage or defeat of this legislation will be felt in America for centuries.”
-Representative John C. Box
Immigration was completely open and inviting at the beginning of U.S. history.
There was land to be cultivated and jobs to be filled. There was a lot of work to be done
and the U.S. needed able bodies to do it. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion
Act. This unprecedented bill was essentially passed in order to maintaining the racial
purity in American society. This racist Act predicated the 1924 Act and Congress’s
authority to exclude groups of people from immigrating based on what is “good” for
America.
In the late 19th century, immigration patterns saw a dramatic change in the
demographics of immigrants coming to America. Southern and Eastern European
Immigration doubled from 956,196 in the 1880s to 1,893,437 in the 1900s.26 The
Progressive Era endured dramatic change. During this period, nativists saw immigration
as detrimental to the make-up and purity of America. They blamed immigrants for the
30
new problems that faced the U.S. The U.S. was experiencing “new forms of poverty
[that] strained local relief efforts; labor upheaval; socialist movements; class conflict;
radicalism.”27 These new threats were ‘caused’ by the new wave of immigrants and
endangered the greatness of America. Immigration was the great American problem.
Therefore, Nativists jumped on the restriction boat and began to fight for immigration
reform to restrict certain immigrants from coming into the U.S.
They were not entirely against immigration per se, they encouraged immigration
from certain areas, but not from those they deemed inferior to Americans or those who
made up America. Restrictionists had hoped to keep certain groups out, while allowing
others in. The sought after new “scientific” research to justify their immigration reform
aims. With expert social knowledge supporting the nativists fears, they hoped to pass an
immigration act that would serve their racist purposes.
Nativists were successful in some minor reforms that forced immigrants to pass
certain mental, physical, financial and moral tests. If they failed to pass these tests, they
were deemed “undesirable” and sent back. These restrictions proved futile in restricting
immigrants from flowing in from Eastern and Southern Europe.
Although successful in passing the Chinese Exclusion Act in the previous century,
nativist faced opposition when trying to exclude Southern and Eastern Europeans on
racist grounds. Victoria Hattam explains in the book The Shadows of Race that from the
late 1890s to the 1920s, scholars began to question the fundamental relations between the
social and biological. This rethinking would have “enormous consequences for prevailing
views of race and for the emergence of ethnicity.”28 With such social science
breakthroughs, restrictionists were given the framework to restrict Southern and Eastern
31
Europeans while encouraging Northern and Western European migration on the basis of
ethnicity, not race.
Restrictionists argued in the early twentieth-century that homogeneity was
absolutely essential in democracy. A multi-raced, multi-ethnic society cannot be
democratic because not all can be free based on difference. This argument necessitated
restrictive immigration reform calling for homogeneity in the name of the health of
democracy and America.
Congress delegated to academic experts to study immigration and ethnic and
racial hierarchies. The findings supported ideas of hierarchy between ethnicities and
endorsed restrictionist ideals.29 After Republican House Speaker Joseph Cannon refused
to allow restrictionist policies time on the floor, restrictionist and their opposition both
sent out after more expertise and studies on the subject by creating the Dillingham
Commission. The scientific way, as Ingram and Schneider discussed, is the best way.
Following Roosevelt’s presidential appointments to the new commission to seek out
expertise on the subject he assured Congress that the conclusions of such studies would
“put before congress a plan which would amount to a definite solution to this
immigration business.”30 Right at the beginning of immigration reforms came an
undeniable reliance on scientific expertise to justify policy.
Restrictionists won the scientific battle with the Dillingham Commission. Not
only did the Dillingham Commission completely support restrictionist’s views, but those
in favor of expansionary immigration politics had little of their own expertise to combat
the Dillingham Commission. The Commission concluded, “Whereas old immigration
brought skilled and industrious settlers who were well acquainted with republican
32
institutions, newer arrivals represented an invasion of unskilled laboring men from less
progressive countries of Europe.”31 New immigrants were now defined by scientific
expertise as unequal to the old immigrants. These new immigrants were now tagged as
the cause of many of America’s social problems.
However, this forty-two volume Commission Report that was presented in 1910
did not result in immediate restriction reforms on immigration. The majority of the public
were not restrictionist. During campaigns, Presidents distanced themselves from
restrictionists because of the unpopularity of their ideals. New immigrants and their
family also made up a large voting bloc in elections.
Although restrictionists were unable to attain their reforms right away, there
began to be a break in traditional views of immigration from a welcoming ideal to an
apprehension towards immigrants. According to Tichenor, right before entering the First
World War, both political leaders and labor leaders were skeptical about new immigrants.
Following the War, restrictionists arguments flourished. The war stimulated a
xenophobic perspective and a “yearning for national uniformity.”32 Tichenor argues that
this international threat was the catalyst of the restrictionary movement that had sufficient
groundwork laid before the war period. The native fears regarding the loyalty of
immigrants to the United States was present in both pro and anti-immigration groups.
This fear resulted in questioning the ability of immigrants to properly assimilate in
America.
Frances Kellor, a pro-immigrant leader, called for alien registration in order to
keep better track of immigrants. Alien registration was a form of categorizing and
tracking immigrants for surveillance. Alongside of alien registration, nativists saw
33
success in 1917 when a literacy bill based that increased head taxes and expanded the
definition of “undesirables.” However, it was still not sufficient in limiting southern and
eastern Europeans from the country.
In 1924, restrictionists saw the ultimate victory with the passing of the
Immigration Act of 1924. A National Origin Quota System was established the limited
immigrants at an unprecedented rate. The quota plan set an annual ceiling for immigrants
at 153,714. This is a drastic drop in comparison to the 700,000 approximate number of
immigrant entering annually in decades past. The numbers set for national quota act were
set from the 1890’s census. This maintained an immigration make up that encouraged and
allowed without restriction, Northern and Western European Immigrants passage to the
United States. The bill also dramatically restricted other European immigrants. Potential
immigrants from Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Russia were on waiting lists that
lasted from 10-75 years.
Another important aspect of the 1924 Act was the encouraged and allowed legal
and illegal immigration of Mexican’s for labor purposes. Mexican’s were good, cheap
labor for southern farmers, and were deemed “easily deportable” because of America’s
and Mexico’s shared border. Mexican immigrants were “non-quota” immigrants and
were free to enter without any annual ceiling or cap.
Rhetoric:
Congressional Debates:
Restrictionists’ discourse surrounding the debate for the passage of the
Immigration Act of 1924 was filled with narratives that defined old immigrants as good
for America and new immigrants as bad for America. These narratives are founded on the
34
dramatic basis that immigration is the great American problem and something must be
done about it immediately.
Representative John C. Box from Texas, on the House floor, stated that it is
imperative to reduce immigration from southern and eastern Europe and
maintain those stocks which colonized here and came as our earlier
immigrants, whose aspirations and views of individuality, home, religion,
and government, and all of life have found expression in American
institutions. Peoples have their own racial traits and characteristics, their
own instincts, their own traditions, and our Government and civilization
are born of what our fathers believe in, loved, and lived for.33
This quote is an example of the greatness that is constructed around the group of
old immigrants. America’s greatness rests on this good character and good
citizenship that old immigrants bring. Restrictionists proclaimed that “America
must be kept American”34 through a national quota system maintaining an AngloSaxon demographic in America.
New immigrants should be limited because their inferiority results in the inability
for them to assimilate. Restrictionists fall back on this negative production of the new
immigrant. New immigrants supposedly are non-attentive and have no regard for
America or her interests.35 Therefore, they should be limited.
William J. Harris, a Senator from Georgia, had an analogous statement on the
Senate floor reflecting the restrictionists ideology and desire to maintain an Anglo-Saxon
stock for the good of America. He stated,
Americans not only desire to maintain the standards which they have
achieved, but they are determined to improve them. In addition to this,
Americans generally are determined to maintain the general character
which has been given to our institutions through the racial characteristics
of these who have been the dominant force and their largest contribution
factor from the very beginning . . . We must close the immigration gates
until we have assimilated those now within our borders. It is the sensible
35
thing to do. If you have indigestion you do not continue to gulp down the
food that caused it. Any physician would direct you to stop eating until the
trouble had vanished (italics added).
Those supporting the Immigration Act of 1924 maintained a narrative of the
exception character of the “old”. They also demonstrate a negative construction of
the “new” immigrant from Southern and Eastern Europe as inferior and
problematic to the progress of America.
Pro-immigrants argue that such a bill would be unjust and discriminate. Senator
Sabbath of Illinois argued,
“The bill so reported is avowedly intended to restrict immigration and is
confessedly discriminatory in its operation . . . it is not the purpose of
well-meaning citizens to speak of any foreign peoples as undesirable and
correctly added that ‘the undesirable are the criminal, the insane, the
pauper, and the other classes excluded by section 3 of the act of 1917’. . .
It is important to emphasize this fact because of the general prevalence of
the idea that immigration should be selective. In their latest report the
majority recognizes the futility of the idea prevalent in some quarters that
immigrants can be hand-picked. Since, therefore, under the act of 1917 the
immigration law is distinctly selective and admits only such immigrants as
meet the strict and intelligent tests of that legislation, any measure which
imposes either arbitrary or adventitious tests destroys the underlying spirit
of our national policy and is contrary to those theories the observance of
which has hitherto contributed to the growth, development, and wealth of
the Republic . . . The obvious purpose of this discrimination, however
much it may now be disavowed, is the adoption of an unfounded
anthropological theory that the nations which are favored are the progeny
of fictitious and hitherto unsuspected Nordic ancestors, while those
discriminated against are not classified as belonging to that mythical
ancestral stock. No scientific evidence worthy of consideration was
introduced to substantiate this pseudo-scientific proposition. It is a pure
invention and the creation of a journalistic imagination. All we know is
that these immigrants are all human beings, and none of them is regarded
by the majority of the committee as undesirable so long as they meet the
test of the act of 1917.
36
This quote represents the legislative contestation that the Act received. The opposition
contested on the grounds of discrimination, the negative construction of certain
populations as ‘undesirable’, and the faulty scientific expertise used to justify the Act.
Emanuel Cellar, a Representative from New York, served in the House for nearly
50 years. His work was substantial for expansionary immigration reform. He also
combats the scientific expertise used in the Act stating,
I must, however, let fly a shaft at Dr. Harry H. Laughlin and his ‘alleged’
‘Analysis of America’s Melting Pot.’ Just as a drunkard’s face is splotched
with red stains, so Laughlin’s report is splotched and soiled with
wholesale inaccuracies and failure to consider factors that destroy the
value of his conclusions. This report makes out a very bad case, indeed,
for our immigrants, especially for the new immigrants, if it could be
considered true. . . He is the kind of pseudo-scientist who likes to force his
conclusions, trusting to luck that no one will check him up. . . Thousands
upon thousands of copies of this report have been sent broadcast
throughout the country. It purports to prove Nordic superiority.
Restriction opposition strongly attempted to discredit the Dillingham commission.
Celler also dramatically argued that the “bill and the pseudo-scientific propaganda for it
has unleashed the dogs of religious and racial hatred. . . The war and the present post war
period, both redolent with hysteria, offer the worst possible background for reasoning out
the immigration problem.” Attempts to discredit restrictionists’ scientific expertise
proved futile. There was a general agreement on the findings of the Dillingham
Commission and there was no academic work to adequately challenge it.
Pro-immigrant activists opposed to this bill set themselves up for failure. With
little scientific backing, they took the position that new immigrants are not bad for
America, but that there is an immigration problem, and the proposed solution is not
reasonable or just. Their debates were filled with detailed stories about the good
37
immigrant from southern or eastern Europe who sent their children to American school
and spent their first wages buying a suit to fit in with American style. These narratives
took shape of the ability of new immigrants to be assimilated within America. These
immigrants were also defined as the builders of “the subways; they did the rough work;
they erected our buildings; they did the things which no other races will do.”36 New
immigrants were good, capable of assimilating and essential to America. They did not lay
the foundations of America’s constitution, but the foundations of America’s buildings
and modern way of life.
Restrictionists considered the immigration matter a “life-and-death struggle”. The
predicted effects of the bill will be felt in America for centuries following. Restrictionists
argued that such a major bill should only benefit America, and if new immigrants are a
menace to America and inferior to Americans then the passage of this bill would ensure
America’s grand success.37
As “good” as new immigrants were to America, pro-immigrants admitted there
was indeed a need for restriction and encouraged assimilation.
I am indeed in favor of restriction but not restriction run riot. . . Let us
appoint an immigration commission to determine and report concerning
the complexities of this most intricate problem before we pass a law which
shall embody our permanent policy. Then, after a reasonable time, with
the hysteria of the war and its aftermath far behind us, we can deliberate
this vexatious problem calmly and dispassionately . . . The Johnson bill
harks back to the census of 1890. . . This graphically discloses the utter
discrimination between “old” and “new” immigrants contained in the
Johnson bill . . . I, for one, would be satisfied to accept naturalization
figures, but not naturalization figures based upon the proportionate
number of nationals that have naturalized.
Without scientific expertise on the topic, there was no consensus on a pro-immigration
reform bill. The scientific solutions to the immigration problem came from restrictionists’
38
privileged expertise. Once pro-immigrants admitted a problem, they were without viable
solutions. The expertise provided, although discriminatory and flawed, constructed the
“old” immigrant as good and the “new” immigrant as bas. The National Quota System
was the solution proposed by restrictionists and it was the solution that was passed.
President’s Statements:
President Calvin Coolidge was transparent with his views on immigration.
One of his first addresses to Congress after the death of former President Harding,
Coolidge took an obvious restrictionist stance. He believed that if America was to
be kept American than there must be immigration restriction. He argues that
restricted immigration is “solely for the purpose of protecting ourselves.” He
states, “We have certain standards of life that we believe are best for us. We do
not ask other nations to discard theirs, but we do wish to preserve ours.”38
President Coolidge believed that restricting immigration would protect
American’s way of life and the economy. There is no evidence of President
Coolidge attaching a narrative to new immigrants. He does insinuate that old
immigrants laid the foundation of the great American society, and it was their
character that set in motion the success of the Nation.
The Legislation
The Immigration Act of 1924 was designated as “an act to limit.” The act
itself distinguished between quota immigrants, non-quota immigrants, and
inadmissible immigrants. Inadmissible immigrants or undesirables are defined as
the idiots, the feeble-minded persons, the criminals, epileptics, the insane,
39
alcoholics, professional beggars, persons that are mentally or physically defective,
the paupers, polygamists, the homosexual, and anarchists.39
Non-quota immigrants were defined as immigrants that were not
numerically limited. They consisted of the wife or unmarried child of an
immigrant; a person immigrating from Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, Cuba,
Haiti, Dominican Republic, The Canal Zone, or any independent country of
Central or South America, his wife and his unmarried children. Ministers, college
professors, those attending seminary or a university and his wife and unmarried
children also were considered non-quota immigrants. The final non-quota
immigrant was defined as someone immigrating for the purpose of studying at an
accredited school, college or university.
A quota immigrant in the Act was simply defined as everyone except for
non-quota immigrants. However, within the quota system were two preferences
for immigrants. The first preference belongs to the child, father, mother, wife,
husband of a citizen of the United States 21-years or older. The second preference
category applies to those who are skilled in agriculture and his wife and children.
Within the act are the parameters for which an application must be filed.
Immigrants are required to provide their name, age, sex, race, date and place of
birth, calling or occupation, a personal description including their height,
complexion, color of hair and eye, and any distinguishable marks of
identification. They are also required to put on their application their ability to
speak, read and write. Also on their application they must inform the U.S. of
whether the immigrant or his or her parents have been a prisoner or in a mental
40
institution or hospital for the treatment of insanity. If a person is petitioning based
on the first preference system as a relative, the citizen must be able and willing to
support the immigrant so that the immigrant will not be a public charge or depend
on any state or federal welfare.
The numerical limitations set by the Act are based on the 1890 census. No
more that 2% of population can be admitted annually. The number of immigrants
from countries is limited based on the percentage of immigrants that entered
during the 1880s.
Summary
The Immigration Act of 1924 was passed due to long and hard process of
restrictionists using social and scientific constructions to label “new” immigrants
as inferior and bad for America. This construction was most successful following
World War I and first Red Scare when both pro and anti-immigrants were
apprehensive about the ability for immigrants to assimilate to the American
culture. The restrictionists had the upper-hand in scientific expertise with the
Dillingham Commission. Those opposed to immigration restriction had very little
data and only symbolic narratives to combat restriction.
The president was clear about his restrictive immigration ideals and
offered a rationale that a restrictive policy is what is best for America and the
American way of life. The Act was passed and signed by the President on July 1,
1924. The Act itself presents the subjectivity of immigrants. The use of the 1890
census maintained a preference towards Northern and Western Europeans over
Eastern and Southern Europeans. The Act also allowed an unlimited number of
41
immigrants from Latin countries to enter. The rationale about keeping America
racially pure is contested here when the Act allows great numbers of Latin
heritage immigrants into the country. Although the arguments, rhetoric, and the
act were about the racial purity, it contradicts itself when it allowed for unlimited
numbers of Latin Americans to enter. This contradiction reflects the racism of the
powerful elites who wished to keep out certain groups of people, while still
allowing others to enter the country in order to maintain cheap labor.
The immigrant had to categorize his or herself when applying to enter the
country. The application calls for the immigrant to extensively describe
themselves; the immigrant is then subject to being deemed admissible or
undesirable. The result of the policy sent messages to immigrants with who are
considered valued and who are not. Those trying to immigrate who have a lowquota number or who are put on waiting lists for years are comparable to the
group of undesirables. The policy sends a message to certain groups of people that
they are not wanted and do not deserve to be in America.
The Immigration Act of 1924 demonstrates how through scientific
expertise, groups—“new” and “old” immigrants—are socially constructed as
good or bad for America. Immigration rhetoric then reiterates the constructions
and justifies these constructions according to the scientific expertise that was
presented. These constructions then gain consensus and solidify a construction of
targets that policy acclimates to. The constructions of “new” immigrants as bad
resulted in limitations in immigration policy; and the construction of the superior,
42
American, “old” immigrant resulted in policy that hardly limited their entrance
into The United States.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
History:
“Once I thought to write a history of immigrants in America.
Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.”
-Oscar Handlin
The Immigration Act of 1924 was a policy regime that endured until the
mid-1960s. Congress remained anti-immigrant for those decades. Congressman
Albert Johnson managed to keep restrictionists in power in the Judiciary
Committee and the Sub-committee on immigration based on institutional rules he
set up. Pro-immigration actors faced many institutional road-blocks when it came
to breaking down the anti-immigrant regime.
Efforts began in 1940, when the American Committee for the Protection
of Foreign Born (ACPFB) declared that the national origins quota system was
discriminatory, separated families, and contradicted “fundamental American
concepts of equality, regardless of race, color, nationality, creed or place of
birth.”40 Pro-immigrant activists also organized a scientific study with the purpose
of finding fresh research on the economic, social and cultural benefits of
immigration.
Not only was there new scientific evidence disproving and invalidating the
Dillingham Commission, but the Post-war era forced many restrictionists to step
back from scientific racism for fear of associating with Nazi racism. Nativists
could no long speak plainly about racial inferiority.41 Restrictionists were force to
break from the studies that the 1924 Act was founded on. New academic work
43
began to combat inferiority claims. These studies were not limited to immigrants,
but also to women, Jews, and civil rights.
Immigration quickly became linked to the rhetoric that surrounded the
Civil Rights Movement, calling for equality and justice for all races and
ethnicities. The Civil Rights Movement saw immigration as an ally; both had a
campaign for equality. This link would prove crucial to the passing of the
expansionary Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
The Cold War crisis that followed World War II had many affects on the
context of immigration policy. First, Cold War competition fueled the high regard
for scientific expertise as fundamental to everyday life. It also increased the
informal and formal powers of the President. This resulted in higher publicity of
the President and his roles in foreign policy. The Cold War also forced America
to shift from an isolationist perspective to a more internationalist opinion.
Expansionists turned to the President to help their campaign and reform
efforts. Truman got the expansionary ball rolling when he called for Congress to
fulfill a responsibility to provide asylum for thousands of refugees displaced from
the war. Expansionist reformers continued to maintain a “good” immigrant
narrative. They described America as a safe haven for those displace from the
war, and those seeking to escape communist nations.
However, restrictionists quickly produced a counter discourse arguing that
letting refugees and immigrants in left America susceptible to the infiltration of
communist spies. Restrictionists spoke freely about their racist view on Jews.
They argued that “Jewish blood would weaken and pollute America.”42 Also, new
44
immigrants and refugees would take jobs away from veterans returning from the
war.
Expansionists published a report that attempted to alter the consensus that
Displaced Persons were all Jews. Expansionists were also able to link refugee
relief to anticommunism, civil rights, and economic recovery. All these discourses
together resulted in a liberal and conservative coalition. Conservatives jumped on
board in the name of anticommunism and liberals in the name of equal rights. The
Displace Person Act passed in 1948.
This pro-immigration victory scared restrictionists and they pressed
heavily for the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. This act was vetoed by Truman,
but overridden in Congress. The bill maintained the national origins quota system
and continued the preference for northern and western Europeans.
Isolationism was a failing ideal for Republicans. Eisenhower ran in order
to “defeat isolationists within the Republican party” and to successfully beat the
Soviet Union. The Democrats took advantage of Eisenhower’s platform and used
immigration restriction as a way to link Eisenhower back to isolationism.
Eisenhower consequently retreated from a restrictionist platform and declared that
he would denounce the national origins quota system.43 In fact, Eisenhower
adopted a narrative that described honorable war heroes that would not be allowed
admission under the current system as worthy individuals to immigrate to
America.
With internationalism taking over in the political realm and new
Commissions and reports emerging criticizing the Dillingham Commission and its
45
conclusions, expansionists were gaining much political inertia. One example of
such a Commission stated that “the best scientific evidence available today is that
there [are] no . . . inborn differences of personality, character, intelligence or
cultural and social traits among races.”44 Research supported doing away with
national origins quotas and introduced a universalistic admissions standard.
In 1955, the AFL and CIO merged and discarded many previous
restrictionist ideologies. A limitation on groups of people is undemocratic, they
argued; Democracy focuses on the individual. With labor and civil rights both
linked to pro-immigration, expansionists seemed likely to pass a major reform
bill. However, strong special interests did not suffice in the political and
institutional arena for expansionists. Road-blocks placed in the institutional
groundwork by Johnson following the 1924 Act prevented any immigration
reform bill to make it out of committee.
In 1958, the Congressional composition of party members was altered.
Democrats took the majority. The new goals for the party were to secure major
reform in areas such as civil rights, education, medical care, welfare and
immigration. The party’s goals for immigration involved eliminating the quota
system, allowing more refugees to enter the country, and eliminating distinctions
between native-born and naturalized citizens. Northern constituencies were made
up of diverse ethnic groups and supported immigration reform. Northern
democrats urged southern democrats to pass an immigration reform, or else
Republicans would replace them and re-take control of Congress. Southern
democrats disregarded their party’s pleas.
46
Immigration was also crucial to President Johnson’s Great Society plan.
Even though he wished to avoid any immigration bills for fear of the public’s
opinion, he could not deny that immigration fell within his call for an egalitarian
society. Also, immigration reform supported the President’s foreign policy goals.
Communism and democracy were in direct contest with each other, the United
States could prove morally superior by opening its boarders to others, as well as
opening its doors to exceptional academics and scholars so not to lose
extraordinary people to a Communist country.
After the success of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Liberal Democrats knew
that they could compete with the conservative coalition of southern Democrats
and Republicans. They acted in haste to pass the Immigration and Nationality Act
in 1965.
McCarran, a restrictionist and powerful member of the Senate, did not
allow liberal Democratic immigration reform to go unchecked. He only allowed
passage of the bill after two major requirements were met. First, family-based
immigrants must be moved to first preference of employment based immigrants.
Also, Western Hemisphere immigrants were to remain unrestricted and
untouched. These alterations helped McCarran and other powerful Southerner’s to
keep exploiting cheap Latin labor and the family-based preference change was a
way to limit Third World immigration as Africans and Asians had little family in
the states. This was another attempt to maintain and prominent Anglo-Saxon
demographic in the United States by restrictionists.
Rhetoric:
47
Emanuel Celler was present and opposed the passage of the Immigration Act of
1924; he was also the architect of the 1965 Act. He describes the passing of the reform in
a poetic fashion. He said,
We have become a great nation. We have the greatest gross national
product of any nation that ever existed. . . One of the reasons therefore, I
think, is that we have siphoned off the best of the brain and brawn of
nations all over the world, of all races and climes and origins. We are a
nation of nations. Our immigrants, as Harry Golden says, constitute the
gulf-stream of our vitality . . . This bill, nullifies the cruelty resulting
from” the National Origins Quota System. “The dawn of the national
origins theory has set, and it will be cast into midnight of darkness by this
bill, which I am sure will have an overwhelmingly favorable vote. Why
did I speak against the national origins theory? Why will this Chamber
vote overwhelmingly to cast it out? Because it says that one man is better
than another.45
Celler is a great example of the Congressional rhetoric that surrounded the 1965 bill.
There is substantial discourse on the negative, unjust, and discriminatory affects of the
1924 bill. The reform bill is the beacon of justice and equality, a sign of America’s
strength in overcoming discrimination. Senator Giaimo puts it quite simply. He states, “I
believe that the national origins quota system is incompatible with our basic American
ideals and traditions.”46
Multiple members of Congress discuss how the new bill corrects discriminating
immigration policy. Congressman Charles Joelson from New Jersey considered “our
present immigration laws to be both cruel and discriminatory” and “un-American”.
Others follow this tone that declares the National Origins Quota System as villainous, and
the new reform act as heroic. For example, John Sweeney of New York stated,
These wonderful amendments end once and for all, in this land of equality,
the inference that one kind of ancestry is better than another. It is
important in my view that America’s image abroad be free of conflict, that
we truly frame an immigration policy which says to the world, we walk as
we talk, and we choose immigrants not on the basis of where they or their
48
ancestors happened to be born, but we choose immigrants for what they
truly can contribute to our society.
Expansionist rhetoric also discusses how the bill will affect the nation. The
Congressional debates ensure that immigration will not increase drastically, if at
all. Also, immigration reform will provide an economic stimulus. Expansionists
repeatedly reminded Congress that major labor organizations supported the bill.
The new reform will bring the “best of the brain and brawn of nations all over the
world, of all races and climes and origins”47 to America.
Restrictionists strongly avoided any racist remarks. Such statements would
prove fatal in a context that’s goals were to bring about justice and equality.
Instead they discussed the threats to national security, population, and economics
of America. They argued that immigrants would flood in from Third World
countries if they had the chance, escaping the poor conditions they were in. There
was the threat of over population as well as national security threats that open
boarders would allow Communists to invade the country without restriction.
Congressman Joseph Fisher states, “I have no doubt that the international
Communist conspiracy will avail itself of the opportunity to increase in
penetration of our country.”48
Those opposed to the new bill still attempted to maintain an argument that
immigrants were not good for America, especially mass immigration that would
follow the reform. Ralph Hall declared,
The question that must be answered today, it seems to me, is, will our
national interests be advanced by the emasculation of a new immigration
policy which has served us so well, even though it is imperfect, or will it,
instead, create new problems for a nation that is only now beginning to
accept, that even in a land of plenty, we have problems of poverty,
49
problems of unemployment, and of racial conflict? . . . Will a drastic
change in immigration policy contribute to or aggravate those problems?
That is the question. Surely it is all too obvious that it will compound our
efforts to reduce poverty, to provide jobs for the unemployed, and to
reduce minority tensions. The policy is contradictory in the sense that the
U.S. is experiencing domestic problems that have yet to be solved, which
problems could be inflated by more immigration. It is almost fascinating
to see the manner in which we can place so much stress on problems that
are partially caused by the population explosion, and then switch gears
with hardly a murmur and stress an opposite problem, to say nothing of
finding an opposite solution.
These kinds of arguments failed to gain momentum in Congress. The narrative of
America as being non-discriminate and the Immigration Act of 1924 being so
discriminatory was enough for pro-immigration activists to make and win their case.
What is most surprising surrounding the Congressional debate over the 1965 Act is the
sporadic use of immigrant narratives. Narratives have been argued to dominate
immigration debate. However, in this case the primary debate did not attempt to describe
a narrative, but was attached more to nondiscrimination ideals.
President:
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
on Liberty Island under the Statue of Liberty. President Johnson’s speech referred to the
bill he was about to sign as a victorious policy that successfully combated discrimination.
The previous immigration policy was a twisted, distorted, harsh unjust bill. It violated
“the basic principles of American democracy.” The new bill “repair[s] a very deep and
painful flaw in the fabric of American justice . . . [it] will really make us truer to
ourselves both as a country and as a people.”49
However, Johnson makes a conscious effort to tone down the results of the bill.
Although he argues it will bring skill and the best intellect and workers to American soil,
50
the bill “is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not
reshape the structure of our daily lives.” The bill is constructed as a remedy to the racist
law that was the Immigration Act of 1924. This statement is a reflection of the
apprehension of the public towards immigration, and President Johnson tries to relieve
his public of the drastic affects that will follow the passing of the bill.
President Johnson does not finish until he has successfully critiqued communism.
When discussing refugees he states that the fact the others wish to come to America is a
“stamp [of] the mark of failure on a regime when many of its citizens voluntarily choose
to leave the land of their birth for a more hopeful home in America.” 50 This statement
reflects the underlying aim of immigration reform to combat communism and defend
democracy.
The Legislation
The bill eliminated the quota system and replaces it with a preference system. The
first preference in the bill was for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens. Followed by
relatives of permanent residence and the employee based immigrants. Employee based
immigrants must be capable of performing specified skilled or unskilled labor for which
there is a shortage or willing or employable U.S. citizens. Conditional entries are based of
immigrants seeking asylum because of persecution on the account of race, religion or
political opinion from a communist or communist dominated country, or from the Middle
East, or those who are displaced due to a catastrophic natural calamity.
There was also a preference for “Special Immigrants” Special immigrants consist
of immediate relatives of citizens of the United States, namely their children, spouses and
parents. They were to be admitted without any numerical limitations. Other Special
51
Immigrants that also have no numerical limitations include: Western Hemisphere
immigrants, permanent resident returning from abroad, someone who was once a citizen,
person whose vocation is a minister of a bona fide religious organization, or an employee
or retired employee of the U.S. government.
Summary
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was a direct response to the
limitations set up by the 1924 Act. New expertise not only defined the Dillingham
Commission as incorrect, it offered non-discrimination arguments on the account of the
equality of races and ethnicity. Pro-immigration actors productively linked immigration
to civil rights goals, notions of democratic justice, a combatant of communist regimes,
and a catalyst to economic stimulation. Reformers enjoyed great success after linking
immigration to issues more salient in the time period. Congress members and the
President also consistently linked nondiscrimination values to immigration.
Restrictionists were left with little room to combat nondiscrimination during the
context. They were still somewhat successful in the legislation by putting family
preferences above employee based preferences. They also were able to keep Mexican and
other Latin immigration flowing for Southern farmers.
The lack of narrative is appropriate in this context. Rather than construct one
group of immigrants as good or bad, the narrative taken on is that equality and
nondiscrimination is good for America. By avoiding traditional narratives of immigrants
from debate, expansionists were more successful in linking immigration reform to
nondiscrimination narratives and expertise. With the public opposed to immigration in
52
the 1960s, replacing immigrant narrative with democratic narratives proved successful
for reformists.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990:
History:
“America thrives on immigration. It always has, and it always will.”
-Senator Edward Kennedy
Although the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was promised by political
leaders to have little effect of immigration, it opened the doors to an era of mass
immigration. The majority of the immigrants came from Asia, Latin America, and the
Caribbean. Restrictionists’ fears were realized as immigrants from Third World countries
flooded into the United States.
Although public opinion has always leaned towards negative attitudes, the
public’s unease with immigration grew following the 1965 Act, especially illegal
immigration. In fact, between 1977 and 1990 between 71 and 79 percent of respondents
favored banning employment of illegal immigrants. Also, between 61 and 65 percent
opposed granting illegal aliens amnesty.
With political apprehensions increasing and the unprecedented new levels of mass
immigration, restrictionists hoped to gain some political inertia. The legacy of the civil
rights movement and the strong anti-discrimination discourses left restrictionists with
little room to craft a viable position.
The Cold War setting also produced a context that maintained large refugee
numbers immigrating into the United States. Relief was offered almost exclusively to
those escaping communist countries through the parole program, also known as the
Freedom Flight Program. Elite groups supported refugee assistance and even encouraged
53
expanding it to more countries other than communist controlled ones. Civil rights, ethnic
lobbies, religious groups, and organized labor made up a large elite group that supported
refugee assistance. The public on the other hand opposed the program. Refugees
continued to enter primarily from communist countries.
Restrictionists knew that with strong support and universal rights discourse
surrounding refugees were untouchable. Focus shifted from halting the Freedom Flight
Program towards illegal immigration. In a 1971 subcommittee were hearings held in
California, Colorado, and Texas. The overall consensus was that illegal immigration was
detrimental and needed to be restricted. The federal government was called upon to
change their policy towards illegal immigration. There were “cold statistics [that]
emphasize the urgency of a change in the federal government policy toward illegal
entries.” It was argued that “the poor have been deprived of 100,000 of jobs for which
they might qualify” because of illegal immigration.51
The Civil Rights movement began to break segregate support from immigration,
arguing thousands of Black youth lost jobs to illegal immigrants. Liberal Democrats were
also weary of illegal immigration, fearing such massive numbers would cause problems
and shortages in their overall welfare goals. With illegal immigrants becoming the
scapegoats of poor economic times, there became a growing accord among political elites
that illegal immigration was hurtful to America.
Employer sanctions and border controls were suggested responses to the problem.
However, Senator John O. Eastland, from Mississippi, had strong coalitions with
southern farmers and INS kept employer sanctions from reaching the congressional floor.
Eastland did not actually hold a single hearing on immigration from the 1960s till 1977.
54
Eastland’s institutional power resulted in a stalemate on immigration reform for over a
decade.
In 1975, President Ford created the Domestic Council Committee on Illegal
Immigration to study the problems of immigration and solutions. The Commission was
unable to establish reliable evidence that would explain the impacts of illegal
immigration on America. The Committee concluded for other reasons that illegal
immigration was hurtful to American Society. The study argued that “people who are
underground . . . cannot be protected from abuse on the job or from landlords,
discrimination, disease or crime.” Illegal immigrants’ impairment of society did not take
what Tichenor calls the “familiar rhetorical assault on illegal aliens”, but a rule of law
perspective.52 The Committee proposed employer sanctions as a solution and declared
that deportation was impractical and inhumane.
To rebuttal employer sanctions, prospective employees that feared discrimination
upon applying for jobs and Hispanic groups linked together opposing the sanctions on
their account that they would discriminate against legal foreign-looking persons looking
for jobs because of the extra work placed on employers with the sanctions in verifying
legal standing in the U.S. Employer sanctions were stalemated once again.
Another Commission on Population Growth and the American Future found that
the population contributions made by immigrants were damaging to America and joined
on the restrictionist movement. The Rockefeller Commission commented on population
growth and immigration as well, concluding that immigration policies should tighten up
“certain areas of immigration, eliminating others.”
55
Still nothing legally was done to affect immigration reform. Legal, illegal and
refugee immigration continued to soar. Congress and the White House were unsure of
what action to take. Consequently, in 1978 they formed the Select Commission on
Immigration and Refugee Policy (SCIRP). Political leaders relied heavily on the results
proposed. SCIRP played a fundamental role in the immigration policies that would
follow its findings. Its findings were condensed into four main sections. First, SCIRP
found that lawful immigration was good for America. Second, illegal immigration was
deemed a serious problem that needed to be controlled. Third, SCIRP designated three
categories of legal admissions based on family, employment, and refugee assistance.
Finally, SCIRP suggested that all races and ethnicities were valuable to American
society. Groups were equally beneficial and equal, being successfully assimilate into the
American culture.
Congress closely followed SCIRP suggestions and their new policy paradigm was
to “close the back door and open the front door” when they proposed a reform bill in
1982. The bill, however, received strong opposition from Hispanic groups, the business
community, and civil liberty advocates who argued that employee sanctions and new
identification cards would invade privacy. Employer sanctions were depicted as
burdensome to businesses, discriminatory, and violations of civil liberties.
With little change in immigration reform, neither partied thought that they could
successfully wait out immigration issues. The Immigration Reform and Control Act,
while surrounded with restrictive rhetoric towards illegal immigration, proved
expansionary.
56
The IRCA proved insufficient is quieting immigration contention. Congress
understood the elite and strongly competitive nature of illegal immigration control and
turned their efforts to legal immigration. Irish interest groups had been pressing for
reformists to increase immigration for Ireland, arguing that they were discriminated
against due to previous quota and preference systems. Kennedy was mindful of their
requests and insisted on a diversity immigrant preference system that allowed immigrants
to come to America even without family ties due to previous discrimination.
Alterations to Simpson’s bill found success in the Senate while failure in the
house. Reform again appeared to be going nowhere. After heavy debates, little seemed to
be getting done. Finally, key politicians met behind closed doors to negotiate immigration
policy. Simpson’s initial bill underwent many changes and was an expansive reform.
Simpson had minor restriction victories in the policy that discouraged illegal
immigration. His victories included enhanced boarder enforcement and resources. The
bill was praised as good for the national interest.
Rhetoric
Congressional Debates:
The debates that surround the Immigration Act of 1990 reflect the growing
complexity and difficult to coherently understand the workings of immigration reform in
the U.S. Much of the debate does not depicted ideological differences in regard to
immigration control, but specifics in numbers, methods and systems to attain their goals.
There seemed to be an agreement that supported the SCRIP’s consensus that legal
immigration is good, whereas illegal immigration needs to be controlled. Rhetorical
57
debates that surrounded both sides of the argument concluded the illegal immigration
needed to be controlled and legal immigration needed to stay robust, if not increased.
In Alan Kooi Simpson’s concluding remarks after hours of debate, he accurately
sums up the complexities that have become immigration politics in the U.S. He first gives
the history of the initial bill he presented in 1982 that underwent eight years of scrutiny
and alterations. He then thanks everyone involved stating that the immigration
subcommittee “must be the smallest subcommittee in the Senate. Nobody else wants to
get into it.” This comical but true statement again reflects to growing anxiety that
surround immigration politics.
Interesting, one of the debates on the floor in the Senate began with a discussion
of illegal immigration and the need to restrict illegal immigration. J. James Exon
presented an amendment to “establish a Government wide policy which states that direct
Federal benefits shall not be paid to illegal aliens”. Senator Robert Graham and Senator
Mack reject the amendment and the burdens that would fall on State budgets and
governments after Federal benefits were dropped. Senator Graham states,
I intend to vote against the amendment. . . In theory, his amendment
makes sense. We should do everything we can to discourage illegal entry
of undocumented aliens into the United States. It is absolutely vital that
we maintain control of our borders and that immigration be managed in a
lawful, orderly manner. . . The Federal Government should ensure that
limited Federal funds go to their intended beneficiaries.
Here, we see the beginning of the construction of illegal immigrants as
detrimental to America. However, this construction was not yet solidified. Senator
Simpson brings the conversation back to the topic of legal immigration. He also brings in
a personal story in as he advocates the passing of the bill. Simpson states,
58
My name is Alan Kooi Simpson, K-o-o-i is the middle name, and it is
Dutch. My grandfather came here, was orphaned at an early age, worked
as a clerk in the railroad, got on the train, went to Wyoming, went in the
coal business in the mines, and then finally ended up owning a coal mine .
. . I think our history has been a rich one, one where we pulled people in
from many nations--the Swedes, the Danes, the Germans, the Italians, the
Dutch, the people from Africa, the people from Asia, the people from
Latin America. We are a richer nation for it.
This passage is an example of the strong construction of immigrants as hard-working and
enriching America.
Narratives of immigrants were prevalent throughout congressional debate. The
immigrant narrative solely depicted immigrant sojourner pasts. Senator Arlen Spector of
Pennsylvania states,
There can be little doubt that there would be enormous benefit to our
country if we were to have an addition of these highly skilled people who
are in great demand currently in the United States. I believe, Mr.
President, that we ought to be constantly reminded of the roots of our
country and the roots of our country being the immigrants, of course, in
addition to the Indians, who are native Americans. This country has
become a great country because we have been a country of immigrants.
Illegal immigrants were never designated with story-like narratives, but
statistically defined as draining the federal budget and robbing other Americans of
welfare and job opportunities. Whereas legal immigrants were constructed fundamental
to the greatness of America.
President:
According the Tichenor, Bush was convinced during the “eleventh-hour” to go
along with the immigration act. The act was praised as encouraging diversity, family
reunifications, and skill and professional based employment. Such praises left the
conservative President really no choice but to jump on board with the bill. President Bush
59
praised the bill for its positive projected effects on the economy and the reunifications of
family. This bill is defined as the bill that opens the “front door” of America following
the closing of the “back door” through the 1986 Immigration Control Act.
The Legislation
The Immigration Act of 1990 maintains an expansionary nature. Special
immigrants and the family-based preference system remains the same. Employment
based Immigration is expanded. Within the Employment-based section, legislators put a
preference order first excepting worker with extraordinary ability in sciences, arts,
education, business, or athletics. Next, outstanding professors and researchers are
preferred; followed by multinational executive and manages. The third preference
system in the legislation deals with diversity immigrants. Those who were subject to
previous limitation and discrimination based on previous discriminatory policies.
Summary
The contemporary immigration policies take on new complications. Following the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1964, immigration policies became divided into three
sections. Legal, Illegal and Refugee immigration was separated from each other.
Scientific expertise separated them by arguing that while one may be beneficial to
America, another may not be. This separation only complicates the matter. Scientific
expertise decouples legal and illegal ideas of immigration. The results are less
quantitatively reliable and take a more social and ideological stance. The Rhetoric shows
these new complications. Debates are no longer essentially asking the question are
immigrants good or bad for America, they categorize and separate immigrants into more
60
divided groups. Policy also becomes more inconsistent on whether it is restrictive or
expansive. Rhetorical inconsistency follows. Also, it seems apparent that the
complexities of immigration reform are a result of the numerous competing elites and
their often conflicting immigration goals.
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996:
History:
“The level of illegal immigration is an `invasion' [and] violates the
guarantee of a republican form of government.”
-Senator Bob Graham
Following the 1990 Act, restrictionist groups like FAIR coupled with lawmakers
to reduce legal immigration. Their efforts were in vain and they were met with a majority
in Congress that clearly refused and legal restrictionists’ proposals. Restrictionists
redirected their attentions in hope to pass some form of restrictionist reform. Tichenor
states, “It made sense to target the most objectionable recipients first—illegals.” The
restrictionist movement began to gain popular anti-immigrant support.
Proposition 187 was a piece of legislation that passed in California that
consequently halted illegal and some legal immigrants access to state money. The harsh
Proposition was met with anti-immigrant and restrictive public support. With
Republicans just returning to the majority of Congress, they saw the mid-1990s as an
appropriate time to push restriction reforms ad use immigration to “win crucial bluecollar Democratic voters.”
The Immigration Act of 1990 created a Commission to continue its studies on
immigration. The Commission’s membership was made-up of both pro and antiimmigrant members. The Commission published a report in 1994 that applauded
continued robust legal immigration, but sought more effective employer sanctions to curb
61
illegal immigration. The Commission built on the dichotomy proposed by SCIRP
decoupling illegal and legal immigration goals. Experts were able to maintain an
expansionary tone when discussing legal immigrants, while proposing to restrict and
enforce larger controls to limit illegal immigration.
Immigration reform was not and has not been a party lined issue, Republicans and
Democrats saw the rising political salience of immigration and new that any reform is
better than no reform. After a proposed bill that restricted legal immigration and caused
for strong efforts to fight illegal immigration failed, lawmakers began to focus on only
restricting illegal immigration. Like the reform legislation of 1990, select lawmakers met
behind closed doors to discuss the parameters of the bill. The bill that followed was the
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The bill was
included in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill of 1997. The bill passed in the senate with
significant ease with a 97-3 vote in the senate and in the house with a 333 to 87 vote in
favor of the bill.
Rhetoric
Congressional Debate
The debate which surrounds the Act clearly criminalizes the illegal immigrant.
There is a consensus among lawmakers that illegal immigrants are draining public
resources and taking opportunities away from hard working, unfortunate American
citizens. Those assisting in illegal immigration were also described as criminal and
punishment for both the illegal immigrant and those assisting them was increased. The
debates discussed what illegal immigrants did not deserve in terms of benefits, and what
62
they did deserve in terms of punishments and burdens. The consensus that illegal
immigration was unwanted and bad for America was strong throughout the debates.
Opposition was based on the affects of the bill on employers, legal immigrants
and individual States. If the federal government withdrew such drastic financial
assistance, states themselves would be subject to fronting the bill or dealing with new
social and economic issues that arise from it. Employers were the victims of ineffective
and burdensome employer sanctions. And legal immigrants would face discrimination
simply because of the fear of being incorrectly deemed illegal. Congresswomen Lucille
Roybal-Allard states,
We all agree that we need to control illegal immigration by strengthening
our borders, enforcing our laws, and ensuring compliance with our
national labor laws. This bill deletes important anti-discrimination
protections in the workplace, and denies fair compensation to employees
for errors in the employment verification process. . . This bill fails to
address the fact that jobs are the primary reason immigrants, whether legal
or illegal, come to this country. Instead, this bill unfairly punishes legal
immigrants, and threatens discrimination against American workers.
Congresswomen Roybal-Allard shows that the argument opposing the legislation
was not over the description of illegal immigrants as unwanted, but rather of the
burdens that it would put on businesses or legal immigration. She states, “We all
agree” that illegal immigration control should be enforce. This quote clearly
depicts the consensus of the negatively described illegal immigrant, even from
those opposing the bill.
There was no positive narrative or construction of the illegal immigrant.
Illegal Immigrants seemed to be criminalized by all those in debate. Never did
opposition argue against the bills discrimination on illegal immigrants. They
63
appeared deserving of severe restrictions. Senator Simpson reinstates this
narrative by saying, “I say to my colleagues, it is in the national interest to
achieve control over our borders, to achieve control over illegal immigration and
the misuse of our most generous public support and welfare programs that so
burden the taxpayers of this country”. Illegal Immigrants were a burden on
America, narratives and discourse reinforced this opinion. Because of SCIRP,
debates were able to subdivide between the benefits and burdens of legal, illegal,
and refugee immigrants. The IIRARA dealt solely with illegal immigration, and
the discourse which surrounded it was negative and the policy outcome was
restrictive for illegal immigration.
The President
At the signing of the bill, President Clinton stated that the bill is good for
America by “cracking down on illegal immigration at the border, in the
workplace, and in the criminal justice system—without punishing those living in
the United States legally.” 53 The President confirms the aims proposed by the
SCIRP and the Jordan Commission set up in 1990, that legal immigrants rights
and admissions should be protected, while illegal immigration should be
controlled. Clinton maintains a fairly ambiguous position, like former President
Bush Sr. by simply stating that the bill is good for America and good for the
national interest of America.
The Legislation
64
The legislation clearly criminalizes illegal immigrants. The bill cracks
down on illegal immigration through strengthening the border with new personnel
and appropriations. It adds stronger penalties to aliens that enter illegally and
those who help them enter. Also, illegal immigrants were prohibited from
receiving treatment for AIDS and assistance for other certain illnesses and
ailments. Federal money like Social Security, Food stamps, and even school
assistance for higher education was restricted from going to illegal immigrants.
Summary
The IIRAIRA was supported by harsh studies declaring illegal immigrants
as bad for America; it had harsh rhetoric followed by harsh policies. Illegal
Immigration was first decoupled from legal immigration by SCIRP and defined as
a problem to the United States. When restrictionists were unable to limit both
legal and illegal immigration, they focused primarily on legal immigration.
Restrictionists in the Republican Party saw political opportunity in passing illegal
immigration reform bills. They hoped to acclimate to the public’s negative
opinion on immigrants and steal blue-collar votes from democrats. The
criminalization of illegal immigrants sent a clear message that illegals were
undeserving of any public benefits and only deserving of punishments and
burdens.
Conclusion:
Following a rhetorical analysis of these four significant pieces of legislation- two
restriction and two expansive policies- the conclusive evidence strongly supports the
65
three theories previously discussed in this paper. In immigration politics there is a clear
example of social construction of subjects and groups by the powerful. In the case of
immigration, the constructions arose from the claims to power through knowledge or
scientific expertise and by those who were writing the legislation. Foucault’s theories on
power-knowledge and discourse is strongly supported on this basis.
Ingram and Schneider’s theory of social construction of target groups closely
reflects that of Foucault’s notion of the construction of subject through discourse-the
arena in which power and knowledge meet. Ingram and Schneider’s scientific design
theory also links with Foucault’s power-knowledge idea that privilege to knowledge
results in a type of authority. The immigration debates and narratives are framed strictly
by scientific expertise. As we see with a rhetorical analysis of immigration policy and
their debates, those in power justify policies with generated scientific expertise, and
therefore, claim to be the authority on the subject and consequently correct. It is evident
that the construction of target groups as deserving or undeserving is discursive
construction that results from the more persuasive scientific expertise and produces a
specific policy. Immigrants are defined as deserving or undeserving of benefits or
punishments through expert studies. Policies reflect these definitions.
Also, Tichenor’s case for the four-interlocking processes to explain the intricate
path of immigration policy is strongly supported as well. Although rhetoric and its
relation to scientific expertise was the focus of this study, it is not the sole, rudimentary
variable that explains immigration policy. As emphasized earlier, the significance of
history and context are strong factors in policy. Institutions couple with a historical
setting lay the foundation for the arena on which rhetoric place. A conclusive emphasis
66
on rhetoric does not discredit or challenge Tichenor’s work. It in fact elucidates one of
the four factors that he argues contributes to immigration policy in the U.S.
Immigration policy heavily relies on the social construction of immigrants
themselves. In the immigration Act in 1924, the rhetoric is framed by the Dillingham
Commission. The Commission scientifically distinguished between “new” and “old”
immigrants. Once these two groups were separated, a dominant narrative was established
to define each group. Ultimately, the Commission defined “old” immigrants as good for
America and “new” immigrants as bad. Conclusively, the policy that follows allows for
high, nearly unrestricted numbers of “old”, Northern and Western European Immigrants,
to enter the U.S. and gains citizenship. Whereas the “new” immigrants were very limited
and excluded from coming to the U.S. in equal numbers as the “old” immigrants. The
social construction of the target group of “old” immigrants as good for America resulted
in a policy allowing them to enter. This construction was coupled with negative
definitions and constructions of “new” immigrants as inferior and bad for America. That
group was restricted from entering the States. The Immigration Act of 1924 was the
result of these constructions.
In 1965 we see yet again a debate regarding whether immigrants are good or bad
for America. This debate took a more ideological perspective and linked immigration
policy to civil rights studies arguing that a country free of discrimination, that upheld its
democratic ideals of equality and freedom for all, was better from America. This
argument took place within the historical setting of the Cold War- where democracy and
communism were in a head-to-head battle with one another.
67
Opposition, restrictive immigrant activists, rebuttled with security threat fears
from allowing potential communists and spies into America. Because science had
strongly challenged previous studies, like the Dillingham Commission, concluding that
biology, race and ethnicity is not a determinate for a good citizen, restrictionists were
unable to retain their previously convincing racial hierarchy and racial purity arguments
to restrict immigration. Immigration rhetoric in the 1960’s tied itself to the civil rights
studies which defined America good because it was progressing towards nondiscrimination. This construction resulted in an extremely expansive Immigration policy.
The narratives adopted vilinized the cruel discrimination of previous policy and raised
America up above all other nations based on its policies that rested on the fundamental
values of America. The Immigration Act of 1965 was heroic and championed the
National Origins Quota System. It was also a symbol of America’s global greatness and
pure, progressive ideals and policy.
After a massive wave of extraordinary large numbers of immigration following
the 1965 act, new Commissions were set up to study the effects of immigration. These
Commissions, primarily the SCIRP, distinguished between the benefits and burdens of
legal, illegal and refugee immigration. This scientific expertise framed a new debate
among immigration, on that could favor both expansionary and restrictionary policies at
the same time. Immigration took on a new form, one that is very similar to the division
among immigrants that is present today.
When pro-immigrant political actors sought to create scientific evidence in
regards to immigration, they ultimately divided immigrant into three groups: legal,
illegal, and refugee immigrants. This is a convincing example of the power of experts to
68
target , divide and define groups. This division brought on a new design for immigration
constructions and policies. Legal immigrants and refugees were quickly defined as good
for America. Illegal immigrants, however, were difficult to study, but not conclusively
good or bad for America, but something America should take an active role in
controlling.
The rhetoric in 1990 constructed the groups of refugees and legal immigrants as
good and deserving. This construction was strongly agreed upon as consensus. Illegal
immigrant policies were almost as inconclusive as the studies. In floor debates, the
discussion of illegal immigrants was minimal as their construction was still being
generated. Policy established minimal punishments for illegal immigrants and attempted
to reduce incentives for them to come to America. This had little effect.
The construction of illegal immigrants as bad for America began to gains strong
footing in scientific studies on immigrants as well as in the public’s eye. Republicans
found it very safe to create policy criminalizing illegal immigrants and writing a policy
that follows the construction. This is an example of Ingram and Schneider’s theory on
politicians implementing policies that are deemed not risky because the social
construction of illegal immigrants as bad became a common notion. Illegal immigrants in
the 1996 debate were straight-up criminals; they violate the laws and invaded the land.
The debates showed congruence on this construction and the discourse centered on what
benefits illegal immigrants did not deserve and which punishments they did deserve.
The pattern seen between immigration and rhetoric is that of the social
construction of a group through scientific expertise. Restrictionists or expansionists seek
after their own scientific expertise to justify their already formed ideologies in regards to
69
immigration. The constructions made by the experts donot immediately affect policy
outcomes. Rather their effects are felt many years after, as social constructions and
categorizations of groups take time to formulate and develop into the popular opinion.
This pattern is depicted in the history of Immigration. The Dillingham Commission was
published in 1910, but the reform act did not occur till 1924. In 1940, elite groups began
to attach notions of non0discrimination to immigration, but it was not until 1965 that an
expansion reform was passed. The SCIRP in 1981 had direct effects on both the 1990 and
1996 Immigration acts by dividing immigrants into sections. However, the
criminalization and negative construction of illegal immigration was not yet solidified in
1990 as it was in 1996. Little was done to curb or fight illegal immigration in 1990, but
the 1996 reform act was strictly attempting to prohibit illegal immigrants from entering
the United States. By 1996 the prominent narrative constructing illegal immigrants as bad
for the country was solidified.
Conclusively, the social constructions of immigrants through generated scientific
expertise is a significant aspect of policy outcome. This notion fits closely with all three
theories. In short, rhetoric is essential to the passing of immigration reform in the U.S.
Rhetoric can be used in many ways, either linking immigration to popular public values,
or justifying immigration through generated scientific expertise, or through constructing
and then defining groups of immigrants that result in specific policies.
Immigrants are constructed and defined through generated scientific studies. The
policy that follows not only contradicts public opinion, but are not necessarily the result
of pure scientific research and study. This paper exposes two critiques: one on democracy
and one on science used in government. Immigration policies reflect a lack of logical,
70
clear scientific backing as well as a distance from the public. Ingram and Schneider are
explicit with their critique on democracy as it moves away from the public and towards
science. This distance contradicts the very notion of rule by the people that democracy is
supposed to uphold. There is also a postmodern fear of impending nihilism if policy is
based on social constructions not by the people but by the elite.
This critique is not without hope, however. Many postmodernists have written
about the theoretical awareness and progress that come from understanding the
construction of subjects and the active capacity to redefine and interact with constructions
to de-construct, re-construct and re-define subjects through such an understanding. This
awareness gives us hope. Tichenor also adds that this awareness
Demands careful attention to how institutional arrangements of the
national state and party system interact with privileged expertise, changing
coalitions of interest groups, and international threats in the policymaking
process. . . The unfolding promise of liberal universalist ideals in the
American national development, are more successful in illuminating
crucial secular historical developments.
It is ironically through more scientific and academic studies that we can overcome the
rhetorical constructions that generate subjects and policy.
1
Newton, Lina. Illegal, Alien, or Immigrant: The Politics of Immigration Reform (New York University
Press 2008) 1.
2
Tichenor, Daniel. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton University
Press, 2002) 15.
3
Krebs, Ronald and Patrick Jackson. Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political
Rhetoric. “European Journal of International Relations, 2007, 38-42.
4
Krebs and Jackson, 42
5
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality (Random House, Inc., 1979) 12.
6
Foucault, Michel. Discipline & Punishment (Random House, Inc., 1977) 23.
7
Foucault, (1977) 22.
8
Ehlers, Nadine. Retroactive Phantasies: Discourse, Discipline, and the Production of Race. “Social
Identities” Vol 14 Issue 3 2008, 334.
9
Ehlers, 336 quoting Foucault.
10
Ingram, Helen and Anne Schneider. Policy Design for Democracy (University Press of Kansas, 1997) 2.
11
Ingram and Schneider 1997, 67.
12
Tichenor, 8-9.
71
13
Ingram and Schneider 1997, 76.
Alexander, Susan H. and Rita J. Simon. The Ambivalent Welcome: Print Media, Public Opinion and
Immigration (Praeger Publishers 1993) 45.
15
Tichenor, 252.
16
Alexander and Simon, 41.
17
Gallup poll http://www.gallup.com/poll/1660/Immigration.aspx
18
Roper center poll http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/cgibin/hsrun.exe/Roperweb/pom/StateId/DM7acAYHQr8VNwYJbyH3lpSs14szC4mz2/HAHTpage/Summary_Link?qstn_id=312880
19
Alexander and Simon, 46.
20
Alexander and Simon, 46.
21
See Vanessa B. Beasly’s book Who Belongs in America and Kent Ono and John Sloop’s book Shifting
Borders.
22
Newton, 8.
23
Tichenor, back cover.
24
This quotation is in no way an attempt to brown-nose my thesis advisor. Rather, a rationale based upon
privileged expertise for the extensive and fundamental use of Tichenor’s work in the Immigration field for
my thesis.
25
Tichenor, 134-135.
26
Tichenor, 79.
27
Tichenor, 115
28
Hattam, Victoria. In the Shadow of Race
29
Tichenor, 117.
30
Tichenor, 128.
31
Tichenor, 129.
32
Tichenor, 138.
33
Mr. Box, pg 4922 in congressional records
34
Calvin Coolidge quoted by Mr. Johnson, pg 4171 in congressional records
35
Mr. Box, 4267
36
Mr. Celler, 4173
37
Mr. Box, 4268
38
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29564
39
Immigration Act of 1917; Immigration Act of 1924; Senator Sabath April 4 1924 pg 5577 in the
congressional records
40
Tichenor, 177
41
Tichenor, 188
42
Tichenor, 185
43
Tichenor, 198
44
Tichenor, 199
45
Mr. Celler Pg 21755
46
21767
47
Celler 21757
48
Fisher 21774
49
President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill, October 3, 1965
50
Ibid 50.
51
Tichenor, 227
52
Tichenor, 229-230
53
President Clinton’s address. www.presidency.ucsb.edu
14
72
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