Immigration scholar and Society of Fellows alum Hide Hirota (2013–2016) recently gave an American Historical Association congressional briefing on US deportation policy. This month, he also participated in an event on the origins of American immigration at the Tenement Museum (watch here) and wrote an op-ed for TIME Magazine entitled "The Long American Tradition of Categorizing Immigrants as Either Good or Bad."

"In February, President Donald Trump’s Administration sent 178 Venezuelan migrants to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is the latest chapter of the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigrants, a project that officials have said will focus on those with records of unauthorized entry and violent crimes, or “the worst of the worst,” as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has put it. Advocates of strict border policing today typically divide noncitizens in the United States into two groups: regular immigrants and irregular (unauthorized) immigrants. Then, they disparage the latter as “illegal aliens” and call for their deportation...."

Read more here.