The Anti-Mexican Origins of the McCarran–Walter Act of 1952

Many varieties of racism informed the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Yet, while scholars have explored the anti-Semitic, anti-Asian, and anti-Black origins of the law, the anti-Mexican features of the measure have been understudied. This work-in-progress supplies a history of the anti-Mexican animus that led Senator Walter McCarran to bar Mexican migrants from various forms of immigration relief and ultimately enshrine those restrictions in the 1952 law. In defense of these bars, lawmakers relied upon longstanding racist stereotypes that had also informed the passage of immigration laws in the 1920s, particularly the 1929 Undesirable Aliens Act, the first law to criminalize undocumented immigration.

Kang originally completed this research for federal public defenders challenging the constitutionality of the law criminalizing undocumented re-entry (8 U.S.C. § 1326). Time permitting, she will discuss the significance of history, particularly the legacies of the 1924, 1929, and 1952 immigration laws, in this constitutional challenge and the reception of these histories in the lower federal courts.