From the Great Inclusion to the Great Expulsion?

Abstract

The world is increasingly on the move, especially from the global south to the global north, being ineluctably transformed in the process. We live in a world with a declining proportion of rich (and older) people and a growing proportion of poor (and young) people; in which migration pressures will continue to mount as a result of global inequalities and intractable conflicts; and in which the more developed countries are at a crucial demographic and labor force crossroads. But so is the fear of the foreigner—the xenophobia of what has been called a “society of contempt” (“la sociedad del menosprecio”)—which has been rising in tandem with all forms of international migrations, exacerbated by a global economic crisis, terrorist attacks, war, and refugee flows.

An iconic feature of the American experience has been the remarkable capacity of that self-professed “Nation of Immigrants” to absorb, like a giant global sponge, tens of millions of newcomers from all classes, cultures and countries. This phenomenal accomplishment, however, has historically coexisted with a seamier side of the process of nation building and design. Indeed, much of American history can be seen as a dialectic of processes of inclusion and exclusion, and in extreme cases of expulsions and forced removals. The United States today is about to embark on an uncertain era… potentially one of the most tragic and shameful in the history of “Immigrant America.” The current moment harkens back to the Know Nothings of the mid-19th century and their virulent anti-Catholicism; the later nativist movements against Southern and Eastern Europeans, culminating in restrictionist and racist laws; the anti-German hysteria of WWI; and exclusions ranging from the forced removal of indigenous populations, to the Chinese Expulsion Act of 1882, the Asiatic Barred Zone of 1917, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, and the "repatriation" (forced removals) during the 1930s of a million Mexican Americans (over half of whom were U.S. citizens), representing an estimated one third of the total Mexican American population in the U.S. at the time.

Today’s "Deportation Nation" has been forged by the militarization of the border; the passage of draconian federal laws in 1996 that greatly expanded the categories of deportable offenses; a formidable and well-funded machinery for immigrant detention and deportation; the shutdown of any meaningful federal reform legislation, including the "DREAM Act;" and the proliferation of hundreds of state and local laws and ordinances seeking to control immigration at the local level despite constitutional mandates to the contrary. History may not repeat itself, but it echoes.

Keywords: Immigration, International Migration, Immigration Policy, Migration Studies, Refugee Studies, Social Inclusion and Exclusion, Immigrant Detention, Deportation, Xenophobia, Social Conflict, Political Science, Sociology