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e l e v e n Rhetoric and Realities American Immigration Policy after September 11, 2001 R o d o l f o E s p i n o a n d R a f a e l A . J i m e n o American immigration policy is based on a mix of fact and fiction. The maintenance and control of a border between nations is as much a function of economic and human resources as it is about rhetoric and symbolism (Massey 1990). The U.S.-Mexico border is a case in point. The border drawn between the United States and Mexico has increased as a national concern for the United States over time (Hero 1992). Shortly after the United States became an independent nation, its physical border quickly pushed west and south. Control of individuals in newly acquired lands presented problems to American politicians long before the Border Patrol was founded in 1924. Early border control responsibilities fell to quasi-militia groups or, on occasion, to the American military. Notable in American historical folklore, blue-coated buffalo soldiers were sent to quell indigenous Americans who were resisting the westward advance of the American state. 301 302 ■ Espino and Jimeno Once the majority of Native American populations were moved to tracts of land surrounded by American borders on all sides, control of the southern Mexican border and the northern Canadian border emerged as new policy concerns for American politicians. Smuggling alcohol over the Canadian border during the Prohibition years was the major problem to the north. The southern border arose as a problem due to an influx of immigrants—not Mexican immigrants but rather Chinese immigrants—seeking to bypass restrictions on their entry to the United States due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Due to labor shortages brought on by World War II, U.S. immigration policy changed to accommodate Mexican migrant workers with the implementation of the Bracero program, and Mexicans soon became the largest proportion of immigrants coming to the United States (Hero 1992). The trend continues today, forty years after the end of the Bracero program due to economic, social, and political conditions in both Mexico and the United States (Chavez 1992; Martinez 2001). The White House and leaders in Congress have been constantly altering existing immigration laws and policies since the 1950s in an effort to control the flow of migrants across the Mexican border. This continuous tinkering is, perhaps, the clearest comment on the rarity of successful immigration policies. Shifting policies over time is, perhaps, also indicative of the ways in which immigration as a policy concern gets constructed and redefined over time by policymakers in response to changing events (Newton 2005; Wong and Cho 2006). The changing political and economic environments have affected immigration policy throughout the twentieth century (as will be demonstrated below), as have the events of September 11, 2001. These events have entered into the calculus of American politicians and influenced their views on immigration and the way they construct policy to control it in both its legal and non-legal variants. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington introduced two new terms to the Ameri­ can political lexicon: “war on terrorism” and “homeland security.” These concepts suggest a perpetual war against an elusive enemy abroad and at home and have made their way into nearly all aspects of American foreign and domestic policymaking. Immigration policy has been no exception. In this environment, a mix of disparate and often contradic- Rhetoric and Realities ■ 303 tory goals may lead policymakers to work toward certain political advantages by focusing their efforts on poorly chosen targets that, when inappropriately framed, could be publicly construed as entirely appropriate . The United States has long defined itself as a nation of immigrants. Celebrated Horatio Alger stories frame the immigrant experience in the United States, instructing American-born citizens and immigrants that the United States is a land of opportunity in which newcomers are welcome and anyone can move up the American socioeconomic ladder by displaying behavior consistent with the “Protestant work ethic,” regardless of their country of origin (Jones-Correa 2007). The realities of the American immigrant experience often do not comport with the constructed , celebrated notions extant in American folklore, however. Empirical evidence marshaled on the subject signals that upward socioeconomic mobility for immigrants is not so easily achieved within a single generation and that upward mobility is even difficult for subsequent generations (Snipp and Tienda 1982; Portes and Zhou 1992...

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