Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States

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Threat of Dissent explores the United States’ history of excluding or deporting individuals (particularly non-citizens) that held ideological beliefs the US government viewed as threatening to American society. It shows how recent events have a long history that extends further back than the Red Scares of the twentieth century. Kraut's work details America's attempts to restrict or punish citizens, non-citizens, visitors, and residents who the US government deemed radicals.Beginning with the Alien Friends Act in the 1790s and concluding with the War on Terror in the 2000s, Threat of Dissent examines case studies of these ideological exclusions throughout different periods of American history. Organized chronologically, Kraut's book opens with the Alien Friends Act, Alien Enemies Act, and Sedition Act to show how Congress's creation of a Board of Special Inquiry, created to hear deportation cases, set the stage for later restrictions on immigration. Although restricting immigrants based on their health or wealth was already common, the Board introduced the idea of restrictions based on a person's beliefs. Kraut argues that President McKinley's assassination was a turning point that led to bans on anarchists entering the United States and anti-anarchist suppressions of speech such as the case of Emma Goldman, who lost her US citizenship. Wars or the threat of war also produced restrictive legislation; the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act was followed by the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act with both laws containing ideologically restrictive elements. The threat of Communism was another important factor that Kraut discussed, both in the wake of World War I as well as in the 1930s during the Great Depression. Kraut concludes her study by bridging the gap between the Cold War and the September 2001 terrorist attacks, with her final chapter discussing the War on Terror and its aftermath. Threat of Dissent brings the discussion to the present by highlighting the Trump administration's attempts to bar certain individuals from entering the country, particularly with the creation of a travel ban.Contributing an important piece to the historiography of both immigration studies and exclusions and deportations, the book achieves its stated goal to “explore the constitutionality of ideological restrictions” and the “intersection of American immigration and First Amendment law and history” (p. 9). Threat of Dissent was not written to provide a survey of restrictions throughout American immigration history, nor does it attempt to address discrimination based on non-ideological factors. Yet the work strongly demonstrates the author's historical knowledge of both the fields of legal and immigration history; Kraut holds a law degree from American University Washington College of Law and a PhD in History from New York University.The book's eight chapters each investigate a different ideological restriction presented to the US courts. While the information itself may not be new, the author's careful archival work is impressive in her recounting of each case study. The chapters themselves are also well organized, and students in particular will find the detailed conclusions at the end of each chapter a welcome addition. The author's clear, concise writing and her success at connecting the past to the present are major strengths of the work.Historians and experts in the field of legal or immigration studies will appreciate the book's careful scholarship, while students and the public will find Threat of Dissent accessible. The author's writing is free of jargon; whenever Kraut does use legal terminology, she includes definitions in parentheses. Additionally, the presence of at least one image per chapter—photographs, political cartoons, pamphlets, and posters—helps the reader visualize the actors involved with the different case studies. This book is engaging and well suited for undergraduate or graduate legal history courses, immigration and ethnicity courses, or as selected readings for either US history survey.