In a concerning turn of events, the Trump administration has announced a halt on issuing immigrant visas for applicants from 75 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as 10 Eastern European nations. The Department of Homeland Security has justified this decision by claiming that immigrants from these regions pose a “high risk” of relying on welfare and becoming a “public charge”.
As an immigration scholar, I am deeply troubled by the falsehoods underlying this economic rationale. The vast majority of immigrants have been legally barred from accessing cash welfare since 1996, and those who do qualify for benefits like SNAP and Medicaid use them at much lower rates than non-immigrants. In fact, immigrants, including undocumented ones, are net contributors through their taxes.
However, a closer examination reveals a troubling pattern – the countries targeted by this latest ban were also subject to the racist quotas of the 1924 Immigration Act, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act. This legislation, which was in place for four decades, restricted immigration to the United States based on national origin, effectively excluding non-white, non-Protestant populations.
The parallels between the Trump administration’s rhetoric and that of the Act’s lead author, Representative Albert Johnson, are striking. Johnson, a self-proclaimed eugenicist, believed that “our capacity to maintain our cherished institutions stands diluted by a stream of alien blood”. Similarly, Trump has expressed a preference for immigrants from “nice” countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark over those from “filthy, dirty, disgusting” nations.
Just as the Johnson-Reed Act established the category of “illegal alien” and introduced visa requirements, the Trump administration is evoking the specter of immigrants becoming a “public charge” and testing their English proficiency. Both sets of policies also demanded stringent health checks, with Johnson being a proponent of sterilizing the mentally disabled.
The 1924 Immigration Act was hugely popular at the time, passing with over 80% support in Congress and being signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge, who echoed the Ku Klux Klan’s mantra of keeping “America American”. The Act succeeded in its goal of maintaining a white-majority population, reducing the foreign-born proportion from 13% in the 1920s to less than 5% by 1970.
Today, the United States is facing a similar demographic shift, with 15% of the population being foreign-born and the country on track to become majority non-white by 2045. This prospect appears to be a driving force behind the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, reminiscent of the exclusionary policies of the past.
However, just as the civil rights movement resisted the 1924 Act’s racist quotas, we must once again stand up against the resurgence of such discriminatory policies. We can learn from the collective resistance and the recognition that the rights of all people of colour are interconnected. The fight for a truly inclusive, non-racist system is an ongoing battle, and we must organise, protest and demand that the humanity of all individuals is recognised, regardless of their national origin.