This book offers a rigorous and incisive examination of the legal foundations of U.S. immigration law, situating them within the broader historical, political, and economic forces that have shaped the nation since its founding. Employing a critical legal framework, it traces the United States’ evolution from a republic formally structured around racial exclusion to a polity that has gradually dismantled many barriers based on race, religion, gender, and national origin—while retaining deep internal contradictions.Rejecting conventional narratives, the book advances a capacious conception of immigration that encompasses voluntary, coerced, and imposed forms of human movement. This approach enables a unified analysis of Indigenous displacement, African enslavement, Asian exclusion, the criminalization of undocumented migration, and the expansion of deportation regimes as tools of state power. By highlighting immigration’s central role in shaping American demography, labor markets, and governance, the volume exposes the enduring paradox of a nation that oscillates between exclusion and inclusion while remaining a powerful global magnet for migrants.
