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Best regards, Andrew Stewart - - - Subscribe to the Washington Babylon newsletter via https://washingtonbabylon.com/newsletter/ Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <h-rev...@lists.h-net.org> > Date: September 10, 2019 at 12:04:37 PM EDT > To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > Cc: H-Net Staff <revh...@mail.h-net.org> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Benton-Cohen on Kang, 'The INS on the Line: > Making Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border, 1917-1954' > Reply-To: h-rev...@lists.h-net.org > > S. Deborah Kang. The INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the > US-Mexico Border, 1917-1954. New York Oxford University Press, > 2017. 296 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-975743-5. > > Reviewed by Katherine Benton-Cohen (Georgetown University) > Published on H-LatAm (September, 2019) > Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz > > Blurring Legal Lines at the Border > > S. Deborah Kang, an associate professor of history at California > State University, San Marcos, understands that two (or more) things > can be true at the same time. In _The INS on the Line: Making > Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border, 1917-1954_, Kang > demonstrates that the internal and oscillating contradictions of the > first half-century of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now > part of US Customs and Border Protection) continue to shape border > enforcement today. In a laudably brief 180 pages, Kang has created > "in the simplest terms ... an institutional history of the INS on the > US-Mexico border" (p. 5). Her two main points are, first, that the > INS, as an agency often underfunded and treated with profound > ambivalence both by the local objects of its rules as well as by the > federal bureaucrats who oversaw it, _made _law as well as enforced > it; and second, that the INS's mandates and programs were often > internally contradictory. By fruitlessly trying to appease both > "border hawks" and local employers, the INS simultaneously pursued > both border enforcement and leniency toward undocumented immigration. > > > Though these are not entirely new arguments, their rigorous backing > in the deep archives of the INS guarantee Kang's book a place on the > expanding bookshelf of essential reads on the complex history of the > US-Mexico border. Such a close reading reveals remarkable gems like > the epitaph with which Kang opens the book, a quotation from an INS > district director from 1928: "It was complained that the presence of > the Border Patrol in Nogales, Arizona had a discouraging effect upon > business and the patrol inspectors have been taken out of the town > with instructions to conduct their operations on the outside" (p. 1). > > And so we see, time and again, the ways that underfunded and > overburdened regional bureaucrats responded to local exigencies by > making policy in the absence of legislative clarity. Kang's six > chapters offer compact case studies of the INS's early years. Chapter > 1 examines the World War I era's first guest worker programs and > suspension of new rules like the literacy test and passport > requirements "sustain[ing] the transnational character of the > borderlands for the benefit of local residents" (p. 12). Chapter 2 > shows the first years of the Border Patrol, whose practices angered > reformers from all sides; chapter 3 examines a more aggressive > enforcement approach that prompted a reflective reform effort to > curtail what even internal critics saw as excessive. Chapter 4 shows > the INS in a period of weakness in the 1940s, and then as it sought > to gain control over the Bracero Program from other federal agencies, > one perverse consequence of which were calls from the Mexican > government for stronger enforcement. Chapter 5 explores the internal > administrative and cultural changes that resulted from the Bracero > Program, as well as its failure to curtail undocumented immigration. > Chapter 6 shows the sometimes ironic complexities of the debates and > precursors to Operation Wetback in 1954, including Truman-era > liberals' role in advocating for a stricter border and immigration > enforcement policy even as they tried to dismantle the racist > national-origins quotas. Kang's conclusion bravely connects this > history to our post-9/11 present, in which the INS is routinely > treated as a law-enforcement agency when in reality her book > "unsettles this notion" (p. 169) by showing it made law as well as > enforced it. > > _The INS on the Line _complements a few other recent essential > volumes, among them works by Rachel St. John, Patrick Ettinger, > Julian Lim, and Kelly Lytle Hernández's history of the Border > Patrol, _Migra! _(2010). Indeed, Kang uses Lytle Hernández's > collection of primary sources housed in UCLA's Chicano Studies > Collection. Yet at times I wish Kang had expanded on how her argument > differs from and elaborates upon that in _Migra!_ Kang argues that > most works on the history of the INS have argued either that it was > "weak and ineffectual" or "strong and effective" (p. 3). Yet Lytle > Hernández shows the same regional variations and tensions between > Washington supervisors and local business leaders. Her_ _points about > the internal debates within the Border Patrol and the dissonance > between its local practices and federal mandates match in many ways > the story Kang tells. Kang focuses more on the sociolegal context and > the history of administrative law, but the two books work well > together. > > The book is impeccably researched. It is a delight to find archival > documents in footnote after footnote. Kang's main source is, > unsurprisingly, the INS's internal files at the National Archives. > But to tell the story's local context, Kang plumbed a dozen regional > archives as well. The result is a deeply evidenced and convincing > story. Kang did the hard work so readers can benefit from her cogent > and impressive summary of a complex history. > > Kang belongs to a remarkable and growing new generation of > immigration historians--most of them women--who are currently or > formerly engaged in policy debates and advocacy. Most are junior or > recently tenured, and some work outside the academy. Among these are > Mary Mendoza, Ana Raquel Minian, Maddalena Marinari, Ellen Wu, Anna > O. Law, Julia Rose Kraut, Julian Lim, Sarah Coleman, Yael Schacher, > Mireya Loza, Ana Elizabeth Rosas, Torrie Hester, and Beth > Lew-Williams. Like her peers, Kang's scholarship cannot be divorced > from her public work, in talks and social media, on the history and > abuses of the INS, as well as her activism, with special attention to > undocumented students and victims of sexual harassment in the > academy. Drawing on the precedents set by "foremothers" like Mae Ngai > and Donna Gabbacia, this generation defies stereotypes about the > ivory tower. Yet for some reason, the field of immigration history > seems to get little credit for its long history of policy work and > activism. I hope this book will reach a broad audience to demonstrate > the power of history to understand our maddening present. > > Citation: Katherine Benton-Cohen. Review of Kang, S. Deborah, _The > INS on the Line: Making Immigration Law on the US-Mexico Border, > 1917-1954_. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. September, 2019. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53313 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
