Hirota, Hidetaka

OUR SYNOPSIS: Hidetaka Hirota examines Irish migrant stories to piece together how states conducted immigration control in the nineteenth century United States, before the federalization of immigration policy. Focusing on immigration restriction and particularly deportation, he illuminates “the evolution of nativist sentiment, the development of state immigration policy, the social realities of law enforcement, and human stories about deportees’ experiences.” He argues that New York and Massachusetts in particular “laid the foundations for American immigration policy,” directly inspiring the first federal immigration legislation in 1882. (2-3) In the late 1840s, both states extended state-level authority over immigrant exclusion policies previously enforced by cities or towns. The general difference between these states is that New York emphasized exclusion while Massachusetts employed more aggressive and comprehensive restriction through deportation. Other states such as Pennsylvania also excluded immigrants, but not to the same extent. Throughout his analysis he stresses the vital role of class. Irish migrants to the nineteenth-century U.S. were largely impoverished by American standards and Irish workhouses or landlords funded their migration. This worsened with the mid-century famine. Americans responded with anti-Irish and anti-Catholic nativism. Hirota argues anti-immigrant nativism peaked in the late 1850s with the political rise of the Know-Nothings, in some cases leading port officials to step outside of their authority and unilaterally deport migrants. While the federal government encouraged immigration during the Civil War, harsh anti-immigrant sentiment continued.