Immigration laws in the U.S. have historically been motivated by racial exclusion and the desire to save the idea of a white America, according to (Beacon Press), a new book by University of 麻豆传媒 at 惭ā苍辞补 Professor Reece Jones.
White Borders connects the past to the present, detailing racist anti-immigration policies ranging from the border wall to the Muslim ban. The book documents ties between anti-immigrant hate groups and the Trump administration, which repackaged white supremacist theories of white genocide and “the great replacement” as mainstream political ideas.
“I wrote this book after becoming alarmed by the anti-immigrant turn in American politics over the last few years,” said Jones. “As I dug into the archives and traveled the borderlands, I realized that—from the first immigration laws that banned Chinese immigrants to the construction of the border wall today—racism had been at the heart of immigration restrictions in the United States.”
In a starred review, the called White Borders, “A highly recommended, in-depth history of migration that accounts for lives affected by American border policing and immigration restrictions.”
The said, “Reece Jones explores the tragic, ludicrous, and endlessly violent creation and maintenance of America’s borders…Jones’s greatest contribution is to show the forces that really drove the Trump campaign.”
Jones is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and chair of the in the . He is the author of three other books: the award-winning Violent Borders (2016) and Border Walls (2012), as well as the forthcoming Nobody is Protected (2022). He also serves as the editor-in-chief of Geopolitics, a peer-reviewed journal covering global politics, human geography and international political economy.
This work is an example of UH 惭ā苍辞补’s goal of (PDF), one of four goals identified in the (PDF), updated in December 2020.