A.S. Blum: I wanted to talk about how things were before 1924 and probably a little bit after.

Aviva Chomsky: So as racial slash national, because race and nation are very closely tied together in U.S. immigration law, so yeah, it gets kind of confusing, like who's racially restricted and who's nationally restricted, and the courts are constantly debating this, to what extent are races nations and are nations races. But until 1965, so there are restrictive immigration laws, racially restrictive and nationally restrictive immigration laws passed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The 1882 is the first racially restrictive immigration law, Chinese exclusion. 1921 and 1924, I mean, so 1917 creates the Asiatic barred zone, which again, is it racial, is it national, how do these things go together? But 1921 and 1924 are explicitly national restrictions that include restrictions on European immigration, numerical restrictions. Like the naturalization for Europeans has been around since the first naturalization act was in 1790, right, after independence. And it restricts naturalization to free white persons. So it uses race rather than nation, but again, it's kind of the same thing.

A.S.: I think that at this point, the border was a bit fluid, right? So workers from Mexico were traveling to the States to work on the fields during agricultural seasons and then they could return, and there wasn't really established border at this point, right?

A.C.: So first of all, yes, the border is totally fluid. But again, Mexicans are racially excluded from citizenship, so they're not immigrants. They can cross the border, but they're not immigrants. Immigrants are white people because they're the only ones who can get citizenship. And then after the Civil War, that category has expanded with the second naturalization act in 1870, which allows people of African nativity and African descent to naturalize and the 14th Amendment that creates citizenship by birth. So those are two big expansions in the conceptualization of who can be an immigrant. But the naturalization act—so there's basically nobody immigrating from Africa at the time. So Mexicans and Chinese are still prohibited from naturalization unless the Mexicans can be considered white. And then the first restrictions on the border start after citizenship by birth because there's a contradiction between the naturalization law, which allows citizenship only for white people and people of African nativity and African descent, and the fact that people who are not white can now obtain citizenship by birth. And that's why the Chinese Exclusion Act follows so closely on the heels is in order to prevent people from China, from migrant workers from China, from accessing citizenship by birth. And the reason it's not applied to Mexico is because especially after Chinese labor is excluded, the need for migrant labor in the West is so huge. And Mexicans are considered to be temporary seasonal and that they're not going to stay in the United States and have children. So they're not going to be able to access citizenship by birth from which they are still racially excluded. So the dependence on Mexican migrant labor, but constructed as something temporary as people who will come and go rather than having children. And so yes, the border is open. The first official guest worker program is during World War I. As the exclusions, numerical exclusions on citizenship are starting to come into play so that 1921 and 1924, but so there's two programs during World War I and World War II that formalize Mexican seasonal migration, but that don't stop informal seasonal migration. So it's really not until Western hemisphere restrictions are put into place in 1965 that the concept that the border has to be used to stop Mexicans from crossing—like when the Border Patrol was created in 1924, it's really to stop Chinese from crossing the Mexican border. They're the ones who are prohibited. I mean, it was easier to go to Mexico and then cross the border to the US rather than go to the US directly.

A.S.: Let's talk about the Bracero program. It's an interesting one because I think it tries to legitimize the seasonal temporary working migration, but I think it fails to do so at a certain point.

A.C.: Well, in the civil rights era, the 1950s, the 1960s, so the 1950, 1954 Operation Wetback is widely considered legitimate among the white population of the United States. But with civil rights advocacy and activism and farmworker advocacy and activism, the Bracero program comes to be seen—certainly comes to be understood by Mexican migrant workers—as a way of maintaining exploitative conditions and as a way of preventing unionization. And with the rise of farmworker activism and civil rights activism more generally, eliminating the Bracero program in 1964 is seen as part of a move towards removing segregation, racially unfair legislation. So this is at the same time that the Voting Rights Act is passed, the Civil Rights Act is passed, and eliminating the Bracero program is part of that larger move. And the idea that farmworkers should have rights. But—and the 1965 immigration law actually is promoted as part of that whole move of removing racial restrictions on immigration and treating, as they say, every country equally, removing the racial quotas, replacing them with a uniform national quota and applying quotas to the Western Hemisphere for the first time. So this is really the applying of—the elimination of the Bracero program and the applying of quotas to the Western Hemisphere sets the stage for illegality.

A.S.: I would say that it materializes illegality for Mexicans.

A.C.: Yes. And the association of illegality with Mexicans also.

A.S.: It's interesting because there's still this massive influx of informal workers that despite the Bracero program existing, they probably avoided for all sorts of reasons. And after the Bracero program ends, this influx is much higher because there's still a lot of—there's still a big need for agricultural workers and also for construction workers. And there's really no enforcement of the border at this time either. It's later that the idea, the concept of illegal immigration and the idea of enforcing the border is really subsequent to that. Yeah, I would say what happens before the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act? Like what was the precedent before that?

A.C.: So the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act is in the context of the expansion of this idea of the Latino threat, the expansion of this idea of illegality as a problem, increasing migration from both Mexico and Central America, economic crisis in Mexico, wars in Central America. And yet, interestingly, it's a bipartisan—you know, this is under Ronald Reagan—and it's a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform in that it promises to do two things. One, legalize, offer paths to legalization for people who have been in the United States for a period of time and for people who are agricultural workers. So there's sort of two paths in IRCA, depending on how long you've been in the U.S. or whether you're a seasonal agricultural worker. That at the same time starts us on the path of criminalizing illegality. We're going to strengthen the border. We're going to prevent people from coming in, and we are—the creation of employer sanctions that is basically making it illegal to work in the United States if you don't have proper documentation authorization. So it's great for all the people who are able to legalize, and it's really bad for all the people who are not able to legalize. And every comprehensive immigration reform proposal since then has basically followed that path. Okay, we'll legalize some people, we'll take into account people who've been here for a long time, but there's been a progressive militarization of the border since then as well, which has paradoxically greatly increased the numbers of undocumented people in the United States because the harder it is to cross the border, the less people are willing to engage in seasonal migration. And the more people decide, well, if I'm going to spend so much money and take on so much risk to cross the border, I can't go back and do it again. So what had been for many generations a circular seasonal migration turns into permanent migrations, and migration from Latin America starts to expand far beyond Mexico. We have refugees coming from Central America, we have refugees coming from Chile. So all the things that are happening in Latin America in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s are really increasing migrant streams from both political and economic crisis in many different parts of Latin America.

A.S.: What exactly, after 1986, is defined as illegal? What deems someone as illegal?

A.C.: Basically, well, there's two different ways that people become illegal. There's entry without authorization or entry without inspection, EWI—that is, people who cross the border without going through a border facility so that they do not get a legal authorization to enter the United States—which accounts for about half of the people who are undocumented in the United States. And there are people who enter with inspection, with a valid passport, a valid visa of some sort, but violate the terms of their visa in some way. So like someone who comes in on a student visa but stops taking classes, somebody who comes in on a tourist visa but overstays the visa, so someone who enters with a valid visa but the visa becomes invalid either because they overstay it or because they violate the terms of it. And there's many, many different kinds of visas—tourist, student, business—and so those are the two basic ways that people become illegal. So a lot of the propaganda about illegality focuses on the border, but actually about half of the people who are in an undocumented status came in with a valid visa, with inspection.

A.S.: Exactly, and what would you say are the consequences of legitimizing illegality? Because throughout your book I found plenty of consequences.

A.C.: So you know I have this section in the book, in the introduction I think, where I talk about from religion to race to nation, and how in the early colonial period religion was seen as a legitimate grounds for excluding people. They're not Christians, therefore we have to kill them all, and that was seen as legitimate. And then there's this sort of gradual shift from religion to race, as especially enslaved Black people began converting to Christianity. It's like, oh well then we can't enslave them on the basis of religion anymore. We have to find another reason—not thought through exactly like that, but sort of a cultural shift in ideologies—to race, and especially with the rise of racial science in the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s through the mid-20th century, ideas about racial race legitimating exploitation and differential legal treatment. And then in the mid-20th century, with the rise of the delegitimization of so-called racial science and racially unequal legislation—and as I said race and nation have always been very confused in people's minds, and even in the laws—but nationality has sort of risen as a legitimating concept for differential legal treatment and exclusion and exploitation. So instead of saying these people have to be excluded because of their race, it's these people have to be excluded because of their nationality. Although we see, you know, race is kind of coming back.

A.S.: I mean yeah, I think it's just a matter of looking at the Overton window and where exactly it shifts, and I think specifically in the current political climate, we have shifted towards the right and towards maybe having more of a nationalistic sentiment among the United States, but maybe—

A.C.: Well, I think nationalism—I don't think there was ever a retreat of nationalism, but I think that nationalism is at least on the right becoming more openly racialized, that the open racialization of nationalism has been more legitimized. But I think it's really important to bring into the conversation the question of the right to remain home, and to remember that most people—only a small minority of people who migrate—do it just for fun. Most people would rather stay home, and staying home is turned unsurvivable by these big global forces in which the United States plays a huge role. So the United States invades a country, migrants start fleeing that country—like it's a pattern that we've seen over and over again. You know, economic structures displace large numbers of people by turning their land over to multinational mines and agriculture. People migrate to leave. So I think that we need to talk about making things more just for people who are already in the United States. We need to think about normalizing the border, by which I mean demilitarizing the border. But we also need to think about the bigger economic relationships and structures and interventions that cause people to be forced to flee their homes.

A.S.: Yeah, exactly. I think that, I mean, throughout history, we have seen plenty of examples of the most gruesome and violent crimes happening all over Latin America and Central America, and no one wants to flee their home. Absolutely no one.

A.C.: Mm-hmm. So why are so many people today coming from Cuba and Venezuela and Haiti? You know, there are reasons, so we need to think about that also.

A.S.: Yeah, I mean, it's—I think migration is not merely a pursuit of a milestone in life, but a pursuit of life itself, you know, because the situations in your country of origin might be extremely harsh to endure that, you know, a trip that might represent life or death is worth it, is worth taking. And yeah, I think that that should be respected, and it shouldn't be—the topics of migration and the criminalization of immigrants shouldn't be weaponized by politicians in order to gain votes. Maybe that's the segue to the next point of my interview, which would be how probably the first Trump administration was really, really, really promoting that as a selling point, I would say. Like build a wall and stuff related to that. It is using immigrants as a scapegoat, technically.

A.C.: So I would say that Trump is more loud about it, but that the criminalization of immigrants and the militarization of the border has been a bipartisan project.

A.S.: Yeah, I mean, Biden was definitely not better in terms of immigration and deportations. But I think that, yes, Trump is louder, but Trump, I would say, is more dangerous.

A.C.: Well, certainly things are very bad. Like, I don't want to pretend that they're not very bad, but I don't want to demonize Trump in a way that excuses people like Obama and Biden and Clinton. And I think we need to emphasize that it's a bipartisan project.

A.S.: I agree. And I think we should hold them accountable. But I think it was such a main point of Trump's political campaign that, yes, it is a bipartisan topic. But why was it such a big selling point for the people who were seeking for a candidate that resonated with the core American values, with the sovereignty of the nation?

A.C.: Well, so I don't think there is any such thing as American values, any more than there is something called Ecuadorian values.

A.S.: I totally agree. But I think that maybe that speaks towards a more Republican sentiment.

A.C.: No, Democrats are always talking about American values. It's not a Republican thing at all.

A.S.: Sounds like it's a bipartisan thing.

A.C.: Absolutely.

A.S.: Yeah. But what are those values? Is it related to whiteness? Is it related to seeing the states as a superior nation rather than equal to the rest of the world?

A.C.: Well, again, it's a very murky term. And I don't think it means anything. But I think it's something that resonates with people. It just makes people feel good to think that their country has values. But I'm not sure you would—the people who use it rarely articulate exactly what they mean by it. But I think in the case of Trump, he is definitely—so I mean, there's a quote from Obama that I always use where he says, like, people want to think—so politicians want people to think that this country is great. Thinking that the country is great is supposedly an American value. But Obama said something—I'll get a couple words wrong in the quote, because I don't have it memorized, but I use it in my presentations all the time—that what makes this country great is the fact that this is a country that has always welcomed immigrants to our shores. And that's part of what makes this country great. And it's like an idea that has no basis in reality. What do you mean, always welcomed immigrants to our shores? Which shores are you talking about? You're talking about the Atlantic, because you're not talking about the Pacific. And what about people who don't come across an ocean? We haven't welcomed them, right? We haven't welcomed Chinese. We haven't welcomed Mexicans. And people who come to our Eastern shore—are you talking about enslaved Africans who are transported here? Is that what you're celebrating in terms of welcoming immigrants to our shores? No, you're talking about Europeans. You're a Black president, but you are totally swallowed by the white supremacist myth here. You're talking about the Statue of Liberty welcoming European immigrants. That's who the United States has always welcomed.

A.S.: Yeah, I mean, I cannot agree more with what you just said. You know, I think I'm going to default to Spanish because I think that I'm losing my train of thought in English.

A.C.: Okay, I'll try to answer in Spanish, but sometimes I change to English for the same reason. But it's okay. Everything is okay. I feel that you're right. Sometimes I feel that I have a lot of conflicts with Obama's administration because, yes, there were a lot of positive things. I mean, you had DACA, but DACA is very temporary. It was only two years in DACA. And I really feel that there is always… But I also feel that there are limits to what a president can do. I mean, there are limits to what a president can do. And my complaint with Obama… I mean, in creating DACA, Obama had limitations in what he could do as an executive. But I blame him more in his first administration, when he had a Democratic majority in Congress, he could have pushed for an immigration reform that he decided not to do to show that he was very centrist and represented everyone and did not want to create conflicts.

A.S.: Yes, I agree. Who benefits from this system of criminalization, of migration? Who really benefits from this?

A.C.: The politicians, of course. The media. In a sense, the employers, because they support and justify the exploitation of migrant workers, they facilitate the exploitation. Although we have come to a point in which the employers are also suffering because they are deporting all their workers into various industries, from hospitality, from agriculture—they are complaining. The industrial military complex that provides all the technologies and the infrastructure. I think there are many people, and not just whites, but nationalists, I would say, who feel emotionally satisfied with that idea of protecting the country. I mean, I think there is a group of interests, but there are also many who think that Trump's campaigns, especially in Minneapolis, have crossed a border, have gone beyond what should be done.

A.S.: Yes, I agree with all the ICE raids in Minneapolis and the events. I feel that it is being given power to this migratory force that it should not have from the beginning. Obviously, each country decides who to accept and who not to accept, right? I think that is the basis of what we consider countries, that in your book you emphasize that this is a social construct. The borders, the countries, all this is a social construct. Basically, I feel that at this point in humanity we should have freedom of movement, but unfortunately that is not the case. Then each country decides on its own who is degenerate and who is not. And perhaps the concept of race and the nation, but I feel that now we are trying to legitimize it through, perhaps, through criminalization, I would say. So you have a certain group of people who perhaps commit crimes or whatever, I don't know. I think a lot about Kristi Noem's campaigns for all these mega campaigns that were sent of thousands of millions of dollars where she said that we are going to deport all criminals, but there comes a point where the word immigrant is associated with criminal and then with Latin, but I feel that it was a very good selling point of this government. And I feel that the questions in terms of migration have intensified. I think a lot about detention centers, for example, and crimes against humanity that happen inside, that also have to be reported, but that are very few because I do not feel that there is so much information about it.

A.C.: Yes, I feel that the emphasis in detention centers is something new from the new administration of Donald Trump. I would say increased, but not new, because it was Obama who imposed the first quotas in the centers. 

A.S.: It has really been a pleasure to have this conversation with you, Avi. Thank you.

A.C.: Likewise, good luck!