audiobook Waiting for José: The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America by Harel Shapira in History

Description

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society; explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy―a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship; race; and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s―its statutory architecture; judicial genealogies; administrative enforcement; differential treatment of European and non-European migrants; and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction; particularly national-origin and numerical quotas; remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol.