How We Invented Illegal Immigration
This might be the most important seven minutes of your week. For, me, it was one of those beautiful moments when understanding history – a hidden story that isn’t widely told – helped me think much more clearly about an important contemporary issue. Aviva Chomsky, author of “Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal,” explains how recently the concept of “illegal immigration” was developed and how it was developed specifically as a way to discriminate against Mexican workers in the U.S. At the time, visas were not needed to enter the country; people from Mexico, many of whom returned seasonally, were considered workers not immigrants; people from China and other Asian countries were not allowed to enter the U.S. at all; and only people from Europe were considered “immigrants.” And, preceding all of that history of course, there were a couple hundred years of European settler/ immigrants who carried no documentation and were not considered “illegal.”