Fictive Kinship: Family Reunification and the Meaning of Race and Nation in American Immigration

Notes

Notes chapter 1 1. “Japanese Rice Growers in Texas,” RG 85, box 13, Entry 9, File 51835/6, Box 13, entry 9, “Japanese Rice Growers in Texas,” The National Archives and Records Administration, U.S. Bureau of Immigration, Washington, D.C. 2. In Takao Ozawa v. United States, the Supreme Court concluded that the plaintiff, Takao Ozawa, was not a “Caucasian” and instead a member of the “Mongoloid race,” which meant that he was not white and therefore was ineligible for naturalization. In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court agreed that the plaintiff, Bhagat Singh Thind, was indeed a member of the “Caucasoid” race, but was not “white,” which meant that he too was ineligible for citizenship. Although the Supreme Court relied upon the science of race to refute Ozawa’s claim to naturalization rights, it referred to everyday folk understandings of race to argue that Thind was also not entitled to naturalize. Takao Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178 (1922), and United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923); see also Haney López (1996, ch. 4). 3. Rachel L. Swarns, “DNA Tests Offer Immigrants Hope or Despair,” New York Times, April 10, 2007. 4. “Senate Conference on Immigration” (CQ transcripts wire), Washington Post, May 17, 2007. 5. Between 2001 and 2010, 6,760,621 immigrants were admitted as immediate family members or based on the family preference system. In 2010, of the 148,343 immigrants who entered under the employer-based preference category , an estimated 81,354 of them were admitted as spouses or children (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2010, “Table 6: Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status by Type and Major Class of Admission: Fiscal Years 2001 to 2010”). Also available is the diversity lottery, which gives permanent residency to many immigrants from countries with traditionally (recently ) low immigration to the United States. 6. African immigrants entered the United States using diversity visas, refugee provisions , and family sponsorship. In 2011, 48,123 Africans arrived through family sponsorship (7,940) or as immediate relatives (40,183) of U.S. citizens, out of a total 100,374 immigrants, representing nearly half of all legal entrants. 7. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Yearbook of Immigration Statistics 2011, “Table 10: Persons Obtaining Legal Permanent Resident Status by Broad Class of Admission and Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Year 2011.” NOTES 130 8. On April 18, 2013, a bi-partisan group of eight senators proposed an immigration reform bill that would, among other features, provide a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants who were in the United States by December 31, 2011. Senate proposal available at: http:// www.rubio.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=adefad85-7f5c-4f3ea4dc -366a1b71ad38 (accessed May 21, 2013). Even a more modest reform policy, for example, passage of the DREAM Act, which would offer legal status and pathway to citizenship to an estimated 1.7 to 2.1 million minors and young adults, who were brought to the United States without authorization as children, could lead to increased family-sponsored immigration. On the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act (H.R. 5281, December 8, 2010, U.S. House of Representatives), see David M. Herszenhorn, “Senate Blocks Bill for Young Illegal Immigrants,” New York Times, December 18, 2010. According to a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report (Batalova and McHugh 2010), slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized individuals would have become eligible for legalization had the bill passed. The Obama administration’s deferral program of June 15, 2012, would make as many as 1.7 million immigrants eligible for a kind of temporary permission to stay in the United States called deferred action. Millions of children and young adults who were recently given a suspension of deportation orders for being in the country without authorization could become eligible for a pathway to permanent resident or citizenship status if some form of the DREAM Act passes (Julia Preston, “Illegal Immigrants Line Up by Thousands for Deportation Deferrals,” New York Times, August 15, 2012; Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, “Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individuals Who Came to the United States as Children” (memorandum), June 15, 2012, available at: http://www.dhs.gov/ xlibrary/assets/s1-exercising-prosecutorial-discretion-individuals-who-cameto -us-as-children.pdf (accessed November 13, 2012). 9. On naturalization laws and whiteness, see Haney López 1996. On European immigrants’ achievement of whiteness, see Ignatiev...