Publisher's Synopsis
The first book to show that immigration laws in the US have always been motivated by racial exclusion and the desire to save the idea of a white America. Former President Trump's racist anti-immigration policies, from the Border Wall to the Muslim Ban, have left many Americans wondering: how did we get here? In a sweeping historical study, Reece Jones reveals that though the US is often mythologized as a nation of immigrants, it has a long history of immigration restrictions that are rooted in the racist fear of the "great replacement" of whites with non-white immigrants. From the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619, the colonies that became the United States were based on the dual foundation of open immigration for whites from Northern Europe and racial exclusion of slaves from Africa, Native Americans - and eventually, immigrants from other parts of the world. Connecting past to present, Jones reveals the links between the Chinese Exclusion laws of the 1880s, the "Keep America American" nativism of the 1920s, and the "Build the Wall" chants of the 2010s. Along the way, we meet a bizarre cast of characters such as John Tanton, Cordelia Scaife May, and Stephen Miller who have moved fringe ideas about "white genocide" and "race suicide" into mainstream political discourse. Through in-depth historical analysis, Jones explores connections between anti-immigration hate groups and the Trump administration, and the lasting impacts of white supremacist ideas on United States law.
