The ugly history of American immigration

Give us your tired, your poor, your white men from Northern Europe yearning to be free

Immigrants register in a New York post office in 1940 to prove they are not subversive agents.
(Image credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

President Trump is looking to remake American immigration. And like many of the white men who have occupied the Oval Office before him, he wants to do it in his own image.

The White House recently rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy — accepting no new applicants and, in six months, no renewals. Since then, the president has reached out to Democratic leaders about crafting an unspecified deal, but, for now, almost 800,000 U.S. residents face the looming uncertainty of whether they will be required to leave the only home country they have ever known. This harsh stance is echoed in Trump's plan to cut legal immigration by limiting immigrants' ability to bring their family members into the country, and in the administration's insistence that family members such as grandparents not be exempt from his Muslim travel ban, which prohibits refugees from certain countries from entering the United States.

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Rebekkah Rubin

Rebekkah Rubin is a public historian and writer. Her work has appeared in Belt Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, and Electric Literature.