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Immigration is one of U.S. voters’ top concerns, particularly among Republicans. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to conduct mass deportations of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and has spread incendiary rhetoric about Haitians, Puerto Ricans, Palestinians, and other nonwhite communities.
However, under President Joe Biden, the United States has restricted immigration to a near-unprecedented extent. Vice President Kamala Harris became the face of this effort in 2021.
The Biden administration kept in place many Trump-era policies, including Title 42—the measure that restricted migrants’ rights to claim asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the White House replaced Title 42 with new barriers to asylum, and in June, Biden issued a proclamation limiting it even further. Both moves prompted numerous lawsuits.
Writing in Foreign Policy in July, Diana Roy of the Council on Foreign Relations offered historical perspective: “Today’s U.S. immigration debate—with politicians on both sides of the aisle promoting restrictive policies and contesting who should be allowed into the country—mirrors that of a century ago, when President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Immigration Act of 1924,” she wrote.
The 1920s were a period of nativist fervor. But Coolidge’s 1924 policy would ultimately “backfire by dampening U.S. economic growth,” Roy wrote. Immigration is the backbone of the U.S. economy, according to numerous independent analyses.
“Now, 100 years later,” Roy warned, “Washington seems poised to make the same mistake.”
Read it here: America Is Stuck in a Century-Old Immigration Debate
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