White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall

by Reece Jones

Former President Trump’s racist anti-immigration policies, from the Border Wall to the Muslim Ban, have left many Americans wondering how we got here. In a sweeping historical study, Reece Jones reveals that, although the US is often mythologized as a nation of immigrants, it has a long history of immigration restrictions that are rooted in the racist fear of the “great replacement” of whites with non-whites. From the arrival of the first slave ship in 1619, the colonies that became the United States were based on the dual foundation of open immigration for whites from Northern Europe and racial exclusion of Africans, Native Americans, and, eventually, immigrants from other parts of the world. Connecting past to present, Jones reveals the links between the Chinese Exclusion laws of the 1880s, the “Keep America American” nativism of the 1920s, and the “Build the Wall” chants of the 2010s. Along the way, we meet a bizarre cast of characters, such as John Tanton, Cordelia Scaife May, and Stephen Miller, who have moved fringe ideas about “white genocide” and “race suicide” into mainstream political discourse. Through in-depth historical analysis, Jones explores connections between anti-immigration hate groups and the Trump administration and discusses the lasting impact of white-supremacist ideas on United States law.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Race, American History, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published October 12, 2021

About the author

Reece Jones is the author of five books: Nobody is Protected, White Borders, Violent Borders, Border Walls, and the forthcoming Smuggler with Greg Boos. He is a professor of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai'i, editor-in-chief of the journal Geopolitics, and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giveaway Win!

Jesus! This was a bleak read.

White Borders is a well researched and concise history of US immigration restrictions. Starting at the founding of America all the way up to our current immigration process. And it's a disturbing read. I try to stay up to date on the immigration issue but I was shocked by just how horrific this country has always been in matters of immigration.

Here are just a few things this book covered:

1) The ethnic cleansing experienced by Chinese immigrants in 1800's

2) The ever changing definition of white
a) In 1897 Mexicans were white
b) From 1910 to 1920 South Asians were white
c) In 1905 Armenians were white....sometimes
d) From 1909, 1910 and 1915 Syrians were white. In 1913 and 1914 Syrians were not white.

3) The Nazi's based their early persecutions of the Jewish community on US immigration laws

4) The relationship between environmentalists and white supremacy.

5) How easily the media picks up white nationalists talking points and mainstreams them.

White Borders is a short book but it covers a lot of ground. I almost wish it was longer even though I was exhausted when I finished this book. This book should be on high school curriculums because this book covers way more than I ever learned in school.

Recommended to everyone!

[Mark Rimelspach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book which shows clearly the history of the United States with its continued quest to avoid diversity in the composition of its people. I found it stunning how history repeats itself over and over in this immigration battle over who should be able enter our country based on their skin color and area of origin.

[Bon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enraging, heavy truth-dealer of a book. It is fairly short but took me a while to get through because of the hard facts about eugenics movements, horrifying immigration policy, and white supremacist fuckery that permeate American history.

[Curious Ecology · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short and very readable history of how racism has impacted immigration policy in the US.

This book was still completely illuminating. Jones has effectively created a synthesis and through-line that shows the family tree of people and ideas in the anti-immigration movement, and their white supremacist nature, from their beginnings in the US.

I appreciate the explanation of John Tanton, the major anti-immigrant organization in the Tanton Network, their funders, and especially the naming of names of individuals with connections to them. I think whenever a pundit is talking about immigration, it is worth finding out what organizations they are connected to.

One thing that I would like to comment on:

Chapter 11 describes John Tanton's attempts to take over the board of the Sierra Club, in order to bring anti-immigration policy to a mainstream organization. The chapter ends by saying that the anti-immigrant activists moved on, and that the Tanton Network "turned their sustained focus elsewhere" as "the majority of environmental activists were not open to his nativist message." It's definitely true that the hardline nativists have found they no longer need to hide behind environmentalism to find an audience for their message — the chapters on the GOP and the Trump Administration prove that.

However, supporters of Paul Ehrlich, John Tanton, and Garrett Hardin with connections to the Colcom-backed organizations such as Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS, mentioned many times in this book) remain active and influential in the environmental movement today, especially in the western US. For example, Ben Zuckerman (one of the anti-immigration partisans who won election to the Sierra Club board and mentioned in this book) is still around on of the Boards of Directors at Californians for Population Stabilization and Progressives for Immigration Reform, and other organizations.

Many population control advocates in the environmental community have died recently (Alan Weeden & Richard Lamm in 2021; Scientists and Environmentalists for Population Stabilization (SEPS) member / conservation biology and rewilding scientist Michael Soulé in 2020; SEPS member and monarch butterfly advocate Lincoln Brower in 2018; Patagonia founder and Apply The Breaks signatory Doug Tompkins in 2015; and yes, Sierra Club luminary David Brower, who CAPS claims as one of their own, in 2000.)

However, it's a mistake to think that these ideas will die out with that generation. Their ideas have helped shape thinking in the environmental and conservation community for fifty years, and continue to be influential today in conservation science; in public policy, especially at the local levels (as anyone involved in open space and housing politics in California can probably tell you); and especially in the thinking of right-wing extremists, who continue to cite overpopulation and "The Great Replacement" as rationale for their policies and violence.

[Mickie O'Kerns]

Exceptionally well researched book about the intersection of white supremacy and anti-immigrationists. Also very readable for a fact-based historical text. Very eye-opening and highly recommended.

[nikita · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book really shines with its breakdown of the tanton network

[Nnamdi Martyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give it 20 stars if I could!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read. It discusses the history of the immigration laws in the United States and how it was built upon white supremacy with the intent of creating a majority white state with whites in power.

It also discusses how this connects to the modern day anti-immigration movement and how it overlapped and connected with so many different movements and disciplines from environmentalists and fringe movements to later becoming a main center platform today. It also goes into great detail about Trump's immigration policies.

The book even discusses many key players of the anti-immigration network from well known individuals such as Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump, to lesser known individuals like John Tanton and Cordelia Scaife May, who all played a role in shaping anti-immigration policy and upholding white supremacy.

This book was very eye opening and revealed the agenda of the anti-immigration movement along with how they came into existence.

[your neighborhood friendly book python :D · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite informative, highly recommend to anyone looking to look into racism/immigration.

[Matt Filipski · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hoped for a lot more out of this book. It was definitely well-written, but it was hardly a history of race and immigration in the US, as the title implies. Really it focused on the couple major immigration laws in US history and went very deep into a few individuals who advocated for immigration restriction. It skipped over a lot of people and legislation. And to write a book about immigration and not include any immigrant voices in the narrative? Come on...

[Kielyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riveting. This book covers a ton of ground with sufficient depth throughout. I was surprised to learn the origins, pervasiveness, and relatively unchanged narrative behind Replacement Theory; eugenicist roots of nature conservancy and early environmentalism, as well as Planned Parenthood; and about the small group of people funding it all. Extra slimy ending on Sessions, Stephen Miller, and Tr*mp.

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very potent book about the "border", which isn't really about where the country physically starts/stops, but is more about who is part of the country. According to Jones, the U.S. border moved west as white settlers pushed out with U.S. government assistance. As it did, it encompassed more non-whites and prompted a debate about how to exclude them. This continues into the present day, as every major immigration reform from Congress tries to reinforce the preference for white immigrants. It continues further as Donald Trump uses the border as a dog-whistle to talk about White Supremacy. It is a very convincing argument, reinforced almost daily by Trump himself.

Jones spends the last part of the Tantor Network and their reclusive funder Cordelia Scaife May. They set out to establish the United States as a whites-only club, but did it through language that talked about the border and illegal immigrants rather than race. They surreptitiously supported the "Great Replacement" theory, which was clearly evident in the "Unite the Right" rally, where protesters demonstrators chanted that they can't be replaced. After a vocal white supremacist killed one protester and injured dozens of others, Trump refused to condemn the white nationalism on display. Tantor died in 2019, but his work continues. The book was written prior to Trump returning to the Oval Office, but his recent statements have done nothing to undermine Jones' argument.

This is a very good book that is important to read if you want to understand the difference between the stated intentions of policy and the actual intentions. I would not say I enjoyed it, because it is an ugly indictment of the country I love but I did find it valuable.



Here are the acts of congress that Jones discusses. They are very useful to look at when trying to understand the evolution (loaded term for this topic) of immigration policy.

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (and it subsequent renewals until 1943) prevented most Chinese (and East Asians) from coming to the United States.

The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 set quotas that would keep the same ethnic makeup of the United States based on the 1890 census, in order to exclude ethnic groups outside of Europe and from less-acceptable Europeans (southern and eastern). It also set up the consular vetting system of limiting immigration at the country of origin.

The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 consolidated various immigration laws into one, reinforcing the national origin quotas while also bringing in family-reunification as a major factor.

The Hart-Sellar Act of 1965 abolished the national quotas system and brought family reunification to the fore. It also removed the exemption for Hispanics, who previously had frequently moved to the United States for seasonal work and then left. The Hart-Sellar Act was intended to keep whites in the majority, but didn't work out that way as fewer Europeans were looking to move to the United States than were Latinos and Asians. In addition, many Hispanics were incentivized to stay in the United States rather than returning to their home country.

The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 tried to deal with the unintended side effects of the Hart-Sellar Act, including penalties for knowingly hiring and illegal immigration and increased the forces patrolling the border. It also gave amnesty to some illegal immigrants who had been in the United States for four years.

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was expecting to give this book a much higher rating until I got to the bit about Obama and birtherism and read that, according to the author, as the child of a US citizen, Obama would have been entitled to US citizenship wherever he had been born. (Page 167: "Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, was an American citizen, so no matter where Barack Obama was born, he would have been a U.S. citizen.")

That's not an accurate description of US citizenship law. Whether or not a child born outside of the country to a US citizen parent (or even two US citizen parents) is a US citizen at birth depends on the strength of the citizen parent's ties to the US, as measured in the amount of time the citizen parent spent living in the country before the child's birth. The exact requirements to transmit citizenship have changed over the years and and it's questionable whether or not Ann Dunham would have been able to transmit citizenship to her son had he been born in Kenya.

Obama was born in 1961, so the rules for deriving citizenship through his USC mother that would have applied to him are:
1. for MARITAL children, the citizen parent needs to have been "physically present in U.S. or its outlying possessions 10 years, at least 5 of which were after age 14."
2. for NON-MARITAL children where the mother is a citizen, she needs to have been "physically present in U.S. or its outlying possessions 5 years, at least 2 of which were after age 14."
https://www.ilrc.org/acquisition-deri...

Obama's mother was 18 when he was born, so she couldn't have met the requirements for passing citizenship to her child if the US government recognized her marriage to Obama Sr. But she was his second wife, and the US government does not recognized polygamous marriages. So whether or not Barack Obama would have been a US citizen if born in Kenya would depend on whether or not his father's customary marriage to his first wife was legally valid in Kenya or merely ceremonial. (none of which actually matters, since Pres. Obama was born in Hawai'i)


I don't expect Jones to get into that level of nuance, but getting the general rule that wrong is a stupid unforced error. Even the most basic research would have made clear that children born outside of the US do not always derive US citizenship from their citizen parent, or even their citizen parents. That the author gets this wrong makes me doubt the accuracy of what he says on topics where I don't already know what's correct.

[Bryce · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read and enjoyed Jones's previous book, Violent Borders, so I was very underwhelmed by this one. The title implies something different than what we get. The book spends a few chapters on a very basic overview of early US immigration policy and some of the figures and racist ideologies behind it, and then a few chapters giving a lot of information about a couple very specific lobbyists, which then ties into a retelling of all the immigration nonsense that Donald Trump got into that we watched on CNN while he was president, with no new insight into those years. Oh, and a strange chapter about how anti-immigration activists tried and failed to take over the Sierra club, which didn't really fit into the rest of the book.
So really this book was an attempt at contextualizing the Trump administration's immigration policies, a lot of words to say a pretty simple argument that he finally states in the last paragraph of his book, that the reader should support the free movement of people. Aside from the fact that his whole thing could have just been a long form magazine article or something, he spends no time in the book talking about the free movement of people, and the point made about racism is kind of besides the point. If we are picking up a book called "white borders" we probably already know that US immigration policy is racist. There are points in this book that maybe liberals need to hear lest they unknowingly start falling for anti-immigration rhetoric, but he doesn't make those points sharp enough for liberals to hear; instead of thinking about what to support, we get the obvious shit: Trump bad, racism bad, etc etc.

There are many very serious and insightful books of both historical and journalistic explorations into the racist immigration and border policy of the United States, I would suggest you read those.

[Jen K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well researched and well written but chilling narrative about the institutionalization of racism in US policies and systems starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1800's. White is a such a social concept that the laws changed repeatedly as to who was white with some groups being white some years and not white other years. Then when people challenged the definition, the policy makers had to scramble to keep making up the definition. So many celebrated names that I learned in history class were on board with eugenics and racist policies which is disappointing that this fuller biography was not included in the history books.

Particularly new and fascinating to me is how so many pioneers of family planning, contraception and environmentalism (Sanger and Muir) quickly went from reducing the population to save the environment to reducing specific populations and actively advocating against certain types of immigrants and even infiltrating the Sierra Club.

Of course, all those opposed to immigration and legalizing racist policies were beside themselves when a candidate was elected to the office of President who was open to their ideas and placing them in key positions in the government. They were ready and they acted quickly to take advantage and subtly embed biases into the systems. Not sure how we fix the issue while so many are believing the "replacement" theory. It makes my stomach turn when they talk about keep the US population American born and completely ignore those indigenous to the country. I hope that issues continue to be acknowledged and the knowing and learning are used to improve systems and remove the biases.

[Barry Kyrkund · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with a lot of American history, much of what was revealed in this book was never talked about by any teacher or mentioned in any textbook when I attended public school.
Not surprisingly, that movement to hide the truth continues across this nation. The excuse being it would be too upsetting to white students not taking into account the thousands of people who lived the reality of white supremacy and the horrendous damage it has and continues to do.
The other reality is that it is just a matter of time before this nation will no longer be majority white.
If we could just learn to appreciate and use the gifts of different races and cultures our society could live up to it’s founding principals making us all better.
I hope over time more individuals will choose to learn the truth. Not to divide us but to use that information to make us better. After all, isn’t that suppose to be the value of learning history?

[Dea · Rating 2 out of 5]

The information presented in the book is without argument super important. That said, I do not think it was presented in the best manner. Hydra organizations are notoriously difficult to explain without use of red string and a tinfoil hat, but not impossible. When I was listening “Pharma” by Gerald Posner about the Sackler family, who made a new shell company every time someone sneezed, I did not often find myself wondering how all the companies fit together. Listening to this book, I constantly found myself wondering how the new company that was mentioned fit with all the rest and what the new person had to do with everything.

So yes, important and informative book but maybe someone else can do a better job with the organization and presentation of facts.

[Yolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was phenomenal! Jones does an amazing job in emphasizing to just what extent America has gone in hating immigrants due to their skin color. Although some of the information was frustrating and made me angry to read, it is still important to learn this information. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Tanton network, the book is a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about immigration and the history behind America's views towards immigrants.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating summary of the history of U.S. immigration laws and policies and how they were influenced by or served racial policies and attitudes. An important read to understand where we came from and why we are where we are today.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Rolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and yet very accessibly written history of the racialized history of U.S. immigration policy.

[Michele Reise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative and I'm a bit ashamed I didn't know a lot of this stuff. America has always been shitty regarding immigration and race.