Nativism, Racism, and Immigration Policy

Throughout American history, immigration policy has never been a culturally neutral or purely administrative process. Instead, it has functioned as a political mechanism for defining national belonging, shaped by ideology and racialized narratives. From early federal laws to twentieth-century quota systems, the U.S. government repeatedly translated social fears and racial hierarchies into legal boundaries that determined who could enter the nation and who could belong. Immigration statutes such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the National Origins Quota System did more than regulate entry; they reinforced nativist assumptions about race and citizenship, institutionalizing a vision of Americanness rooted in white, Anglo-Saxon identity (Tichenor 2002).

The nativist foundations of immigration policy are especially evident in the influence of eugenics during the early twentieth century. The American eugenics movement promoted the pseudo-scientific belief that certain populations were biologically inferior, fueling panic that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe—such as Italians, Greeks, and Poles—threatened the racial “homogeneity” of the United States. These ideas directly shaped the Immigration Act of 1924, which established the National Origins Quota System to favor Northern and Western Europeans while sharply restricting Southern and Eastern Europeans and banning Asian immigration altogether (Masuoka and Junn 2013; NPR 2025). The purpose of the quota system was not simply regulation, but demographic engineering aimed at preserving a racially preferred national identity.

Racialized ideology also shaped earlier immigration restrictions. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first federal law to ban immigration based on race and nationality, was justified by narratives portraying Chinese immigrants as racially inferior, unassimilable, and a threat to American labor and morality (Tichenor 2002). Similar assumptions underpinned the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, which effectively prohibited immigration from much of Asia and reinforced the belief that Asians were incompatible with American culture (Wong 2017). Together, these policies demonstrate how immigration law repeatedly served to codify racial hierarchy under the guise of national protection.

Ideas of citizenship and belonging further reinforced these exclusions. From its founding, the United States defined citizenship through whiteness. The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalization to “free white persons,” establishing a racial prerequisite that endured for more than a century (Spiro 2008). This linkage between race and citizenship ensured that nonwhite immigrants remained outsiders regardless of residence or contribution. The Immigration Act of 1924 extended this logic by denying Asians any pathway to citizenship, marking them as perpetual foreigners even when legally present in the United States (Masuoka and Junn 2013).

Legal and political exclusion also limited immigrants’ ability to challenge discrimination. Because Chinese immigrants lacked political power and legal standing, they were unable to resist exclusionary laws that stripped them of civil liberties, including the right to testify in court (Masuoka and Junn 2013). These barriers reinforced a system in which belonging was conditional and unevenly distributed along racial lines.

The construction of racial hierarchy was further legitimized by institutions such as the Dillingham Commission. Its 1911 report introduced a “ladder of races” that ranked immigrant groups by perceived desirability, placing Anglo-Saxons at the top and Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, Mexicans, and Black Americans lower on the hierarchy (Tichenor 2002). Framed as objective social science, the report gave academic legitimacy to nativist ideology and shaped both immigration policy and broader racial ordering within the United States.

This hierarchy extended beyond immigrants. Despite the Fourteenth Amendment, Black Americans were systematically excluded from full citizenship through Jim Crow laws and discriminatory social practices (Masuoka and Junn 2013). Mexicans, initially incorporated into the United States after the Mexican–American War, were later reclassified as foreign-born laborers and denied equal social status. Even among Europeans, racial boundaries shifted over time: Southern and Eastern Europeans were initially viewed as “less than white” before gradually being absorbed into whiteness (NPR 2025).

In conclusion, U.S. immigration policy reflects a persistent pattern in which racial ideology and nativist fear shape legal definitions of belonging. Rather than pursuing inclusive reform, policymakers have often relied on exclusion and enforcement by appealing to fears of demographic change. These policies have produced a racialized hierarchy of citizenship that continues to influence contemporary debates over immigration and national identity, allowing whiteness to remain the implicit standard of Americanness while others are required to continually prove their legitimacy.

Reference:

Blanco, A., Rich, S., Miroff, N., & Sacchetti, M. (2024, June 26). 4.1 Million Migrants: Where They’re From, Where They Live In the U.S The Washington Post

Masuoka, N., & Junn, J. (2013). The Politics of Belonging: Race, Public Opinion, and Immigration. University of Chicago Press

Parker, B.A. (Host). (n.d.) Code Switch [Audio Podcast Transcript]. NPR

Spiro, P.J. (2008). Beyond Citizenship:American Identity After Globalization. Oxford University Press

Tichenor, D. J. (2002). Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton University Press

Wong, T.K. (2017). The Politics of Immigration: Partisanship, Demographic Change, and American National Identity. Oxford University Press