Immigration Law and White Supremacy in the USA

The text analyzes the link between American immigration law and the ideology of white supremacy. The author examines how sovereign border control has been used as a tool to manage the ethnic composition of the nation. A key element of the analysis is the 'plenary power doctrine'—a doctrine derived from Supreme Court jurisprudence (including the Chinese Exclusion Case), which granted the federal government broad powers regarding the exclusion of foreigners. Although immigration law serves many administrative functions, the article points to periods in which racial selection was explicitly embedded in the legal system. An example is the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which separated the issue of the right to enter from the possibility of naturalization, creating a foundation for modern population control mechanisms and institutional racialization.