Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America - Updated Edition

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy-a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s-its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol.

Author: Mae M. Ngai
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 04/27/2014
Series: Politics and Society in Modern America #105
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.00w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9780691160825
Revised Edition