Torrie Hester. Deportation: The Origins of U.S. Policy.

Abstract

Since 1892, the United States has deported a whopping fifty million immigrants. The vast majority of deportations—95 percent—occurred after 1970, but Torrie Hester turns our attention to the early formation of U.S. deportation policy, arguing that the fundamental logic and practices developed between 1882 and 1924 created the deportation regime we live under today. Hester’s careful reconstruction of early policymaking, scrutinizing both landmark court cases and the often hidden work of administrative officials, yields a rich study. Deportation joins an expanding literature on gatekeeping as a fundamental aspect of the modern American state. Hester begins with the Chinese Exclusion Acts, and the well-known court cases that grew out of them, as establishing the fundamental doctrines that guided deportation policy for the future. The Supreme Court in Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893) upheld the sweeping power of Congress to expel any noncitizen it wished, by any means it thought proper, tying deportation to the absolute sovereign power of the state to police its jurisdictional borders and protect against national security threats. The court’s impassioned dissenters denounced the expulsion of resident immigrants as punitive and a flagrant denial of due process, arguments that failed to prevail but revealed fractures in the emerging deportation regime. Deportation expanded, but not without challenges.