{"id":7937,"date":"2025-08-11T06:58:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T13:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christianethicstoday.com\/wp\/?p=7937"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:58:50","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T13:58:50","slug":"from-the-chinese-exclusion-act-to-pro-palestinian-activists-the-evolution-of-politically-motivated-deportations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianethicstoday.com\/wp\/from-the-chinese-exclusion-act-to-pro-palestinian-activists-the-evolution-of-politically-motivated-deportations\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Chinese Exclusion Act to pro-Palestinian activists: The Evolution of Politically Motivated Deportations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese American Internment Camp, Manzanar, Calif. (D Graham photo, Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Rick Baldoz<\/a><\/p>\n

T<\/em><\/strong>he recent\u00a0deportation orders targeting foreign students in the U.S.<\/a>\u00a0have prompted a\u00a0heated debate about the legality<\/a>\u00a0of these actions. The Trump administration made no secret that many individuals were\u00a0facing removal because of their pro-Palestinian advocacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In recent months, the\u00a0State Department has revoked hundreds of visas<\/a>\u00a0of foreign students with little explanation. On April 25, 2025,\u00a0the administration restored the legal status of many of those students<\/a>, but warned that the reprieve was only temporary.<\/p>\n

Because of their tenuous legal status in the U.S., immigrant activists are vulnerable to a government seeking to stifle dissent.<\/p>\n

Critics of the Trump administration have\u00a0challenged the legality of these removal orders<\/a>, arguing that they\u00a0violate constitutionally protected rights<\/a>, including\u00a0freedom of speech<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0due process<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The administration asserts that the\u00a0executive branch has nearly absolute authority<\/a>\u00a0to remove immigrants.\u00a0The White House has cited legislation<\/a>\u00a0passed during the peak of the nation\u2019s Cold War hysteria,\u00a0like the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952<\/a>, which\u00a0expanded the government\u2019s deportation powers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a\u00a0historian of immigration, the U.S. empire and Asian American studies<\/a>. The current removal orders targeting student activists echo America\u2019s long and lamentable past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race or what they say or believe \u2013 or all three.<\/p>\n

The arrest of Turkish graduate student R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk by Department of Homeland Security agents in Somerville, Mass., on March 25, 2025, is an example.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Where it began<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The United States\u2019 current deportation process traces its roots to the late 19th century as the nation moved to\u00a0exercise federal control of immigration<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The impetus for this shift was anti-Chinese racism, which reached a\u00a0fever pitch<\/a>\u00a0during this period, culminating in the passage of laws that restricted Chinese immigration.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0influx of Chinese immigrants to the West Coast<\/a>\u00a0during the mid-to-late 19th century, initially fueled by the California Gold Rush, spurred the rise of an influential nativist movement that accused Chinese immigrants of stealing jobs. It also claimed that they posed a cultural threat to American society due to their\u00a0racial otherness<\/a>. \u00a0The\u00a0Geary Act of 1892<\/a>\u00a0required Chinese living in the U.S to register with the federal government or face deportation.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of these statutes in 1893 in the case of\u00a0Fong Yue Ting v. United States<\/a>. Three plaintiffs claimed that anti-Chinese legislation was discriminatory, violated constitutional protections prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure, and contravened due process and equal protection guarantees.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court\u00a0affirmed the Geary Act\u2019s deportation procedures<\/a>, formulating a novel legal precept known as the plenary power doctrine that remains a\u00a0key tenet of U.S. immigration law today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Court confirms the law<\/strong><\/p>\n

The doctrine included two key assertions: First, the federal government\u2019s authority to exclude and deport aliens was an inherent and unqualified feature of American sovereignty. Second, immigration enforcement was the exclusive domain of the congressional and executive branches that were charged with protecting the nation from foreign threats. \u00a0The court also ruled that the deportation of immigrants\u00a0in the country lawfully<\/a>\u00a0was a civil, rather than criminal matter, which meant that\u00a0constitutional protections like due process did not apply<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The government ramped up deportations in the aftermath of World War I,\u00a0fueled by wartime xenophobia<\/a>. American officials singled out foreign-born radicals for deportation, accusing them of\u00a0fomenting disloyalty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The front page of the Ogden Standard, from Ogden City, Utah, on Nov. 8, 1919, announced the arrest and planned deportation of \u2018alien Reds\u2019\u00a0(Library of Congress<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who ordered mass arrests of alleged communists, pledged to \u201ctear out the radical seeds<\/a>\u00a0that have entangled Americans in their poisonous theories\u201d and remove \u201calien criminals in this country who are directly responsible for spreading the unclean doctrines of Bolshevism.\u201d<\/p>\n

This period marked a new era of removals carried out primarily on ideological grounds.\u00a0Jews and other immigrants<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0southern and eastern Europe were disproportionately targeted<\/a>, highlighting the cultural affinities between anti-radicalism and racial and ethnic chauvinism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Foreign\u2019 agitators<\/strong><\/p>\n

The campaign to root out so-called subversives living in the United States reached its apex during the 1940s and 1950s, supercharged by figures like anti-communist crusader Sen.\u00a0Joseph McCarthy<\/a>\u00a0and FBI Director\u00a0J. Edgar Hoover<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The specter of foreign agitators contaminating American political culture loomed large in these debates. Attorney General Tom Clark testified before Congress in 1950 that 91.4 percent of the Communist Party USA\u2019s leadership were \u201ceither foreign stock or married to persons of foreign stock<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress passed a series of laws during this period requiring that subversive organizations\u00a0register with the government<\/a>. They also expanded the executive branch\u2019s power to deport individuals whose views were deemed \u201cprejudicial to national security<\/a>,\u201d blurring the lines between punishing people for unlawful acts \u2013 such as espionage and bombings \u2013 and what the government considered unlawful beliefs, such as Communist Party membership.<\/p>\n

While deporting foreign-born radicals had popular support, the banishment of immigrants for their political beliefs raised important constitutional questions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prosecution or persecution?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a landmark case in 1945,\u00a0Wixon v. Bridges<\/a>, the Supreme Court did assert a check on the power of the executive branch to\u00a0deport someone without a fair hearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The case involved Harry Bridges<\/a>, Australian-born president of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen\u2019s Union. Bridges was a left-wing union leader who orchestrated a number of successful strikes on the West Coast. Under his leadership, the union also took progressive positions on\u00a0civil rights and U.S. militarism.<\/a><\/p>\n

The decision in the case hinged on whether the government could prove that Bridges had been a member of the Communist Party, which would have made him deportable under the\u00a0Smith Act<\/a>, which\u00a0proscribed membership in the Communist Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since no proof of Bridges\u2019 membership existed, the government relied on\u00a0dodgy witnesses and assertions<\/a>\u00a0that Bridges was\u00a0aligned with<\/a>\u00a0the party because he shared some of its political positions. Accusations of \u201calignment\u201d with controversial political organizations are\u00a0similar to the charges made against foreign students<\/a>\u00a0currently at risk of deportation by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court vacated Bridges\u2019 deportation order, declaring that the government\u2019s claim of \u201caffiliation\u201d with the Communist Party was too vaguely defined and amounted to guilt by association.<\/p>\n

As the excesses and abuses of the McCarthy era came to light, they invited greater scrutiny about the dangers of unchecked executive power. Some of the more draconian statutes enacted during the Cold War, like the Smith Act,\u00a0have been overhauled<\/a>. The federal courts have toggled back and forth between narrow and liberal interpretations of the Constitution\u2019s\u00a0applicability to immigrants facing deportation<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 shifts that reflect competing visions of American nationhood and the boundaries of liberal democracy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

From union leaders to foreign students<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some striking parallels between the throttling of civil liberties during the Cold War and President Donald Trump\u2019s crusade against foreign students exercising venerated democratic freedoms. Foreign students appear to have replaced the immigrant union leaders of the 1950s as the targets of government repression. Presumptions of guilt based on hyperbolic claims of affiliation with the Communist Party have been replaced by\u00a0allegations of alignment with Hamas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As in the past, these invocations of national security offer the pretext for the government\u2019s efforts to stifle dissent and to mandate political conformity.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2014 Rick Baldoz<\/strong> is Associate Professor of American Studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. This article first appeared in The Conservation on April 30, 2025 and is reprinted here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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