Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immigration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities (review)

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act seemingly ended the U.S. government's century-long racist restrictive immigration policies by paving the way for non-European immigrants to enter the United States legally in unprecedented numbers. As Edward J. W. Park and John S. W. Park conclusively prove, however, more lenient immigration protocols would have been uncharacteristic of a nation increasingly driven by global market conditions and corporate practices stressing the utilitarian value of immigrant labor for American economic interests. This book chronicles the historical context of the numerous public policies enacted since 1965 to increase the flow of "useful" immigrants while deporting and stemming the flow of "undesirable" peoples. The Parks provide a concise, yet informative, discussion that artfully merges sociological and historical data that documents the impact of federal and state laws on Asian American populations primarily, and on Latino populations comparatively. In particular, the populations under scrutiny are science and high-tech professionals, seasonal laborers, refugees, criminal and criminalized immigrants at different stages of legal status, and relatives sponsored through family reunification preferences.

One of their main conclusions is that the corporatization of American national interests is the driving force for increasingly restrictive immigration policies. This corporatization attempts to increase the nation's economic productivity while minimizing labor costs and accountability through a systematic filtering process that privileges agricultural and food-processing laborers, as well as science and high-tech professionals. While this claim is true for the populations they primarily address in the book, they did not discuss its applicability to medical professionals and refugees/asylees whose legal immigration seemingly centers more on a politicized humanitarian dimension of American government interests. For example, refugees and asylees are cast as recipients of American humanitarian efforts through their resettlement within America's borders, which may elevate American international prestige due to the perception of a morally or ethically responsible nation-state that welcomes international citizens in need. However, such services have not been primarily nor directly funded by the federal government since the 1970s because the federal government either subcontracts or redirects such persons to resettlement programs and services directed by religious and secular non-governmental organizations like the International Rescue Committee and Catholic Charities. Hence, refugee and asylee populations can potentially provide great publicity for the nation-state with minimal expenditure from federal coffers. This cynical perspective assumes the successful adaptation of these immigrant populations to American life. While there are exceptional individuals who achieve success, refugee populations generally encounter many difficulties in their resettlement.

Rather than tackling a comprehensive discussion of these issues, the book addresses one particular facet of these populations' adaptation to foreground the ironies and hypocrisies of American federal and state policies that criminalize refugee males and disparage the unassimilated immigrant as justification for restricting the number of "undesirable" peoples in the country. The Parks convincingly argue that refugees and asylees are unduly burdened by a system eager to restrict their participation by casting those who insufficiently assimilate to American modes of life as societal failures. An outcome of "compassion fatigue," an exacerbated government entity purposefully criminalizes these immigrants, which would increase the likelihood of their deportation, or portrays these populations as shamelessly ungrateful unassimilated people for whom the government's humanitarian efforts were for naught. Government agencies firmly place the blame on refugees and asylees themselves to convince the American population of the need for more authoritarian measures, especially for criminalized immigrants who encounter limited or no due process after the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

The 1996 Anti-Terrorism Act was especially troublesome since it affected a disproportionate number of working-class and poor-male immigrants (refugees, laborers, and youth) who were subject to deportation to countries of nativity regardless of their lack of homeland socio-cultural competence and personal safety in homelands that may view these "returning sons...