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Pratique du shadowing : What was immigration like before ICE?

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  1. So I noticed something interesting on the history page of ICE's website.0:00
  2. Right here it says, despite US immigration and custom enforcement's relatively young age, its functional history predates the modern birth of the agency by more than 200 years.0:04
  3. That phrase functional history stuck out to me, so I decided to do some digging.0:15
  4. It's functional history.0:20
  5. They're arguing that there was a functional equivalent, right, to their agency.0:23
  6. Well...0:29
  7. Now, we know that ICE was created by the Homeland Security Act in 2003.0:30
  8. To defend the United States and protect our citizens against the dangers of a new era.0:35
  9. So what exactly do they mean by this?0:46
  10. I reached out to ICE directly, asking for their explanation of this functional history, but they never got back to me.0:48
  11. That narrative is kind of an effort to make the agency itself seem like it has this deep lineage that it simply does not.0:53
  12. Following breaking news in Minneapolis where city officials confirm a shooting occurred, reportedly involving a federal ICE agent.1:04
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  1. It is the second shooting of an American citizen by federal officers in that city in just three weeks.1:12
  2. Stop f***ing using us, dude!1:18
  3. So I decided to do a bit of my own research.1:20
  4. We're going to take a look at three distinct eras in American history, showing how immigration policy slowly transformed from labor management to law enforcement, culminating in the creation of1:22
  5. ICE.1:33
  6. So on the same page of their site, ICE refers to the remarkable development of the country throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the essential role of immigration and1:39
  7. the evolving laws and regulations.1:49
  8. Now, in terms of how the US treated immigration enforcement, the 19th and 20th centuries are actually really different from each other.1:51
  9. One of the remarkable things is that the Constitution is actually silent on immigration.1:58
  10. So for the first century of the Republic, Congress plays virtually no role in regulating the arrival, admission, exclusion, or deportation of foreigners.2:04
  11. With one notable exception, the Alien and Sedition Acts, which authorize the president to deport non -citizens and allowed their arrest and imprisonment during wartime.2:15
  12. There is a panic in the United States over the potential radical ideas that certain immigrants are bringing to the United States, specifically after the French Revolution.2:24
  13. But real immigration restrictions wouldn't happen for almost another hundred years.2:35
  14. And that's because until the Civil War resolved the issue of slavery in the US, regulating immigration at the federal level was incredibly difficult.2:40
  15. The problem throughout the antebellum period is if Congress had muscled in and said we're going to control the arrival of the Irish poor into Boston or New York, exactly2:47
  16. the same authority could have been used to regulate the arrival of free black people in South Carolina when you have slavery in the picture.3:00
  17. It takes a civil war to resolve that conflict between the national and the local level.3:07
  18. So then in 1882, after the Civil War, Congress passed two foundational laws, restricting immigration in the US.3:13
  19. The Immigration Act allowed the exclusion of certain vulnerable minorities, such as people carrying contagious diseases.3:20
  20. The same year in 1882, Congress passes another law, and that's the Chinese Exclusion Act.3:26
  21. This law discriminates against Chinese people on grounds of race.3:33
  22. It also discriminates on grounds of class, because it's targeting not all Chinese people, but Chinese laborers in particular.3:38
  23. Now, since immigration isn't in the Constitution, this law was put to the courts.3:46
  24. And the Supreme Court made a decision that would have ripple effects all the way to the modern day.3:50
  25. In effect, what the court rules is that power over national borders is so fundamental to the definition of any nation that it's extra constitutional.3:54
  26. It's a matter of national security and geopolitics.4:07
  27. This pivotal moment is when the US declares it has the right to turn immigrants away based solely on race or ethnicity.4:10
  28. And in 1891, the first federal immigration agency was established to enforce these laws, the office of the superintendent of immigration, and it had a staff of four people.4:16
  29. The immigrants of old turn their eyes toward America's gateway, Ellis Island.4:26
  30. It's really hard to overstate just how central Ellis Island was to immigration at this time.4:31
  31. About two years after the formation of the first agency, the staff had grown to 180 people, and 119 of them were employed at Ellis Island.4:36
  32. And that's because from 1892 to 1924, 20 million immigrants arrived in the US, and 12 million of them came through Ellis Island, and almost none of them were turned4:45
  33. away.4:54
  34. In that 40 -year period between the 1880s and the 1920s, we would estimate that somewhere between only one and two percent of all European immigrants coming to the United4:55
  35. States were excluded on arrival.5:05
  36. In an era without passports, without visas, without the administrative capacity to really enforce the law beyond a certain point, the expectation, as long as you weren't Chinese, coming to5:08
  37. the United States is that you would get in.5:21
  38. And that was only a hundred years ago.5:23
  39. And the greatest war the world had known exploded in Europe.5:26
  40. After World War I, the United States shifted from welcoming immigrants to restricting them.5:30
  41. Many Americans feared a wave of displaced European refugees, and rising xenophobia intensified concerns that these immigrants would threaten national security and the so -called American way of life.5:35
  42. These fears culminated in the Immigration Act of 1924.5:46
  43. Until 1924, American borders were normatively open, and after that they became normatively closed.5:49
  44. You get large -scale numerical restriction.5:57
  45. And this is the start of the third distinct era of U .S.6:02
  46. immigration.6:04
  47. The Immigration Act of 1924 set strict limits on how many immigrants could enter the U .S.6:05
  48. from each country.6:10
  49. U .S.6:11
  50. immigration is restricted by law to a selective annual quota from each foreign country.6:12
  51. The quotas were based on the 1890 U .S.6:17
  52. census, and the goal was to preserve the proportions of each nationality from over 30 years prior, which largely restricted immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.6:19
  53. And immigrants were excluded from not only China, but all of Asia, as well as Africa.6:28
  54. Upon signing the law, President Calvin Coolidge said, America must be kept American.6:33
  55. So that to me is the turning point, because we totally take it for granted that there is a cap on immigration today.6:38
  56. And just by accepting that, right, we are accepting the logic of the restrictionist.6:44
  57. So in 1933, immigration enforcement was merged with naturalization, and became the Immigration and Naturalization Services, or the INS.6:50
  58. They would remain the immigration agency until 2003.6:58
  59. And then in 1940, President Franklin D.7:01
  60. Roosevelt moved the INS from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice.7:03
  61. And that's a change that will come to redefine immigration in the U .S.7:07
  62. He does that pretty explicitly with the understanding that things are getting dicey in Europe.7:10
  63. The harvest days of 1939 brought a turn of world events whose effect on U .S.7:17
  64. economy no man can yet predict.7:22
  65. The threat of World War II added to the growing notion of immigration as a national security issue.7:24
  66. Immigration was no longer just about managing a workforce.7:30
  67. FDR wrote in his reorganization plan, I am convinced that under existing conditions, the immigration and naturalization activities can best contribute to the national well -being only if they are7:33
  68. closely integrated with the activities of the Department of Justice.7:44
  69. The INS was now tasked with fingerprinting every immigrant in the U .S., and organizing internment camps and detention centers for people they considered to be enemy aliens.7:47
  70. So that is people who do not have citizenship, people whose political backgrounds has put them on the United States' radar.7:57
  71. During World War II, the INS detained almost 32 ,000 German, Italian, and Japanese non -U .S.8:04
  72. citizens, who were also denied lawyers.8:10
  73. In total, the INS operated as many as 65 incarceration camps in this period.8:12
  74. We want to take a second to thank our Vox members.8:17
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  82. Now, back to the video.8:51
  83. Now there's one region we haven't really discussed so far that's central to this era of change in American immigration.8:52
  84. Latin America.8:58
  85. It's important to note that the quota system implemented in the 20s never affected Latin America.8:59
  86. Agricultural businesses in the Southwest don't want any restriction on the labor supply.9:04
  87. Latin America is exempted from these laws.9:10
  88. That sentiment continued through to World War II when there was a massive labor shortage in the U .S.9:14
  89. The 1942 Bracero program allowed millions of Mexican men to enter the U .S.9:19
  90. and work legally on short -term labor contracts.9:23
  91. Braceros.9:26
  92. In Spanish, this means a man who works with his arms and hands.9:27
  93. The program, a partnership with the Mexican government, guaranteed fair wages for the workers.9:30
  94. But many employers, especially in Texas, wanted even cheaper labor.9:36
  95. So while millions of Mexicans entered the country through legal means in the 40s and 50s, hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers also crossed the border illegally and found work.9:40
  96. And so it's in this time that the immigration debate in the U .S.9:50
  97. really focuses on the Southern border.9:53
  98. And in 1954, President Dwight D.9:55
  99. Eisenhower implemented Operation WETVAC, named after a pejorative slur from Mexican immigrants.9:57
  100. The operation used military tactics to pursue its goals, led by INS head and U .S.10:03
  101. Army Lieutenant General Joseph Swing.10:07
  102. The American border patrol struggles against a tense explosive international problem.10:10
  103. Along the sprawling California -Mexico border, thousands of Mexican wetbacks or illegal entrants are sneaking into the United States.10:15
  104. The result was one of the largest deportation efforts in U .S.10:23
  105. history.10:26
  106. The INS completed sweeps of factories and farms, shipping undocumented immigrants back to Mexico in boats, buses, and planes.10:26
  107. The U .S.10:34
  108. later claimed that 1 .3 million people were deported.10:34
  109. So as we get into the 60s and 70s, the immigration service is in kind of a tricky spot.10:38
  110. At the height of the civil rights movement in the U .S., President Lyndon B.10:44
  111. Johnson signed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.10:47
  112. The consequential law prioritized family reunification and skills, and repealed the long -standing policy of restricting immigration based on race and ethnicity.10:52
  113. It was also around this time that Americans started focusing more on undocumented immigrants on the interior of the U .S.11:00
  114. The agency is also moving away from just policing the border.11:06
  115. There is very much a sort of growing consensus and understanding that undocumented people are living in American communities throughout the U .S.11:10
  116. The INS is really stretched thin.11:18
  117. They are trying to do interior enforcement or internal operations.11:20
  118. Not just work that is near the border.11:25
  119. The INS's budget in 1975 is $181 million.11:28
  120. By the time the agency ends in 2003, the budget has eclipsed $6 billion.11:34
  121. And the INS grew this budget by doubling down on immigration as a national security and criminal justice issue.11:40
  122. This is an era where there is massive funding and bipartisan support for things like the war on crime, the war on drugs.11:46
  123. And so the INS began to explicitly rebrand.11:54
  124. They don't want to be known for naturalization.11:57
  125. They don't want to be known for working through asylum hearings.12:00
  126. What they want to be known for is law enforcement.12:03
  127. In a statement by the Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan in 1986, he refers to the INS as the criminal justice agency charged with the important responsibility for oversight12:07
  128. and control of aliens attempting to enter or reside within our borders.12:18
  129. Criminal Justice Agency.12:22
  130. Then in 2001, 19 al -Qaeda terrorists, all non -U .S.12:25
  131. citizens, used America's temporary immigration system to attack the U .S.12:29
  132. And immigration became solidified as a matter of national security.12:34
  133. The Department of Homeland Security was created, merging 22 existing agencies and sub -agencies.12:38
  134. Under the new DHS, INS and Customs Enforcement were consolidated into ICE.12:44
  135. This is explicitly a law enforcement body.12:49
  136. And this is a transition that the agency had desired, I think, for decades preceding.12:53
  137. So this brings us back to ICE's original claim that their functional history dates back over 200 years prior to the agency's creation in 2003.12:58
  138. I think it's interesting.13:07
  139. Like, the work that line is doing, right?13:08
  140. The work that line is doing is to try to push back to people who say, this is only a 20 -something -year -old agency, right?13:10
  141. They want to suggest that it's foundational to the United States, that it is not alarming, that we've had an agency like this.13:16
  142. And in some ways, we've had agency that takes on some of these responsibilities.13:24
  143. But immigration being an arm of law enforcement is a much more recent phenomena.13:33
  144. And when people think of ICE today, that's what they think of.13:37
  145. This is a way, kind of, of legitimizing ICE, that somehow we've always had ICE.13:40
  146. We have had deportation campaigns.13:45
  147. We have had, throughout American history, anti -immigrant sentiment and legislation and deportations.13:48
  148. But we always haven't had masked ICE agents going into the interior of the United States with guns and breaking down doors, sending immigrants who are captured to third countries.13:56
  149. I think it's gradual.14:09
  150. I think the story of immigration law is really a story about sort of compounding restrictions on who can come.14:11
  151. American immigration has long been deeply tied to race and origin, whether that was Chinese laborers or World War II alien enemies.14:20
  152. Today, with a much more powerful agency like ICE, Latino communities have been challenged with the most punitive impacts.14:27
  153. We're going to have to have a deportation level that we haven't seen in this country for a long time, since white ICE and our action.14:34
  154. To that extent, there probably will be some, I mean, ICE -like, it may not be called ICE, there will be some kind of institutions that are programs to curtail14:42
  155. some immigration.14:56
  156. The question is, will we see this kind of enforcement in the interior, this kind of illegal enforcement without judicial warrants going into people's houses and arresting them?14:57
  157. The United States is, and always will be, a nation of immigrants.15:09
  158. And with that, attention over immigration is partially fundamental to this country's DNA.15:13
  159. ICE is the culmination of centuries of shifting immigration rhetoric and enforcement.15:18
  160. But at the same time, it's so important to remember that immigration enforcement is not written into the Constitution.15:22
  161. Of course, as a historian, I will find certain precedents.15:29
  162. And then one could conclude from that one of two things.15:32
  163. One is, oh my god, it's always been terrible.15:36
  164. Or you could say, well, all of these things have been fought, many of these things have been fought over before.15:39
  165. The rights that were won for Americans in the past are vulnerable.15:45
  166. They have to, we have to fight to retain them.15:51
  167. Thanks for watching.15:56
  168. And thanks again to our Vox members.15:58
  169. We were able to make this video because of their support.16:00
  170. You can find more videos funded directly by our members by visiting our Patreon.16:03
  171. Head there now to watch a video from reporter Christian Paz on how social media algorithms are shaping coverage of ICE.16:07
  172. A video with senior correspondent Constance Grady that digs into ICE's recruitment ads and a recent episode of The Docket where we break down Trump's war on birthright citizenship.16:13
  173. So join us on Patreon to get access to more stories like this, stay connected to our reporting, and help fund ambitious journalism.16:22
  174. Thanks.16:29

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