Family Unity in U.S. Immigration Policy, 1921-1978 Yuki Oda Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Yuki Oda All rights reserved ABSTRACT Family Unity in U.S. Immigration Policy, 1921-1978 Yuki Oda “Family unity” is often upheld as the principle of U.S. immigration policy, central to the making and self-understanding of the U.S. as a “nation of immigrants.” However, family-based immigration system was only born of struggles of immigrant families against the regime of restriction. As the era of open immigration ended in the U.S. in 1921, there emerged a fundamental tension between claims of immigrant families and the regime of immigration restriction. Much of what current immigration law recognizes as family, or how it matters, originated in the post-1921 era, born out of struggles by immigrant families. This dissertation examines the period between 1921 and 1978 from two perspectives. One is as an era of the three-tiered regulatory system created in the 1920s that lasted until the 1960s to the 1970s: 1) quotas restriction applied to European immigrants 2) exclusion of Asian immigrants, and 3) administrative regulation of immigration from Mexico without a firm ceiling. Another is as the formative years of contemporary immigration control that lasts today. The three-tiered system marked by explicit ethno-racial hierarchization closed first in 1965 by abolition of the quotas system in the Eastern Hemisphere, and finally in 1978 when Congress placed all countries including the Western Hemisphere under a worldwide ceiling. But the end of the quotas era was not a return to an era of open immigration, but an onset of alternative form of immigration restriction and regulation. With particular attention to linkage between ideas about family and ethno-racial composition of the U.S., the dissertation will discuss how claims of family, selective admission and restriction of family immigration, created, reinforced, and unmade the three-tiered immigration restriction regime. To date there has been no comprehensive historical study of the concept of the "family" in immigration law -- how it is defined, who is eligible as a family member and who is not, under what conditions families may be united or separated, and how family-based policies varied according to ethno-racial origin. This lack has resulted in a static and naturalized view of the family rather than a dynamic and contested concept in immigration law and policy. This dissertation explains the changes in definitions of family in immigration, deportation, and nationality law during the quotas era, shows how they are the product of challenges raised by immigrant families, and how they were inherited to the era of formally neutral and at the same time global immigration restriction. Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures .............................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I. Family Exemption and Family Exclusion ......................................................................... 13 Chapter 1: Quotas versus Families, 1921-1934 ............................................................................ 15 1.1 Quotas as an Antithesis to Family-based Admission .......................................................... 17 1.2 Naturalization and Family Immigration ............................................................................. 28 1.3 Family-Oriented Reform and the National Origins Quotas Debate .................................... 44 1.4 “New Immigration” and “Family Immigration” ................................................................. 62 Tables and Figures for Chapter 1 .............................................................................................. 72 Chapter 2: Families Ineligible to Citizenship, 1924-1934 ............................................................ 77 2.1 Ineligible to Citizenship but Admissible ............................................................................. 78 2.2 Ineligible to Citizenship therefore Inadmissible ................................................................. 94 2.3 Reform or Further Restriction: 1930 Amendment to the 1924 Act .................................... 98 2.4 Racial Equality and Discrimination in Equal Nationality Act Debate ............................. 109 Tables and Figures for Chapter 2 ............................................................................................ 125 Part II. Families Formed in the U.S. .......................................................................................... 127 Chapter 3: Mexican-American Repatriation: Across Generations ............................................. 129 3.1 Administrative Restriction to Repatriation ....................................................................... 130 i 3.2 Family-Targeted Repatriation: Across Generations ......................................................... 140 3.3 Citizenship in Suspicion ................................................................................................... 149 3.4 Reclaiming Citizenship ..................................................................................................... 157 Tables and Figures for Chapter 3 ............................................................................................ 164 Chapter 4. “Hardship” Cases and Mixed Status Families, 1929 - 1952 .................................... 167 4.1 Non-immigrants and Illegal Immigrants. .......................................................................... 168 4.2 Illegal Entry, Self-sustaining Family, and Criminality ..................................................... 173 4.3 From Economic Detriment to Exceptional and Extremely Unusual Hardship ................. 189 4.4 Country Contiguous to the United States .......................................................................... 197 Table for Chapter 4 ................................................................................................................. 206 Part III. Dual-sided Reform ........................................................................................................ 207 Chapter 5: Expanding the Boundary of Family, 1953-1959 ....................................................... 211 5.1. The Emergency Migration Program and the Refugee Relief Act .................................... 213 5.2. Migration under the Refugee Relief Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act ....... 232 5.3. Fourth Preference Relatives and the Immigration Act of 1959 ....................................... 237 5.4. Limits of Family-focused Reform ................................................................................... 253 Tables and Figures for Chapter 5 ............................................................................................ 259 Chapter 6: Family Preference, Equality and Uniformity, 1960-1978 ......................................... 267 6.1 “Naturally-Operating National Origins” ........................................................................... 268 6.2 “Accident of the Place of Birth” ....................................................................................... 284 6.3 Post-1965 Immigration Pattern ......................................................................................... 292 ii 6.4 Family Preference, Equality and Uniformity .................................................................... 299 Tables and Figures for Chapter 6 ............................................................................................ 316 Epilogue ...................................................................................................................................... 321 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 333 Appendix A: Terminology .......................................................................................................... 352 Appendix B: Legislations Regarding Family-based Admission, 1921-1965 ............................. 356 Appendix C: Statutes Cited ......................................................................................................... 360 Appendix D: Legal Cases Cited .................................................................................................. 362 iii List of Tables and Figures 1-1: Legislations Regarding Family-based Admission, 1921-1928 ............................................. 72 1-2: Family Visa Petitions Filed by U.S. Citizens, 1925-1940 ..................................................... 73 1-3: Non-quota Families from Europe, 1924-1929 ....................................................................... 75 2-1: U.S. Citizens of Chinese Descent and Chinese Wives of U.S. Citizens, 1906-1924 .......... 125 2-2: U.S. Citizens of Chinese Descent and Chinese Wives of U.S. Citizens, 1925-1941 .......... 126 3-1: Age and Nationality of Repatriate Families, INS San Antonio District, 1939-1940 .......... 164 3-2: Relations and Nationality of Repatriate Families, INS San Antonio District,