Voting Rights and Immigration Under Attack

"In August, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, a crowning achievement of the civil-rights movement which paved the way for the election of thousands of African Americans to political office in states where, previously, they were not even allowed to vote. Two months later, he signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, overturning the Immigration Act of 1924, which, by way of eugenics, had sought to curate an immigrant stock of white Europeans."

"Trump's anti-immigrant crusade has reached a point where masked federal troops are snatching people from their homes-including an instantly infamous ice raid on Chicago's South Side that involved a Black Hawk helicopter-their cars, their workplaces, courthouses, and public streets. Further demonstrating the nature of the President's exclusionary vision, on Thursday the Administration announced that it will slash the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. next year to seventy-five hundred, with priority given to white Afrikaners."

"with priority given to white Afrikaners. In addition, the Administration is insisting that universities accept fewer international students, recognizing that admission to such institutions is often the first step toward citizenship. The President's goals were made plain on the first day of his second term, when he issued an executive order defying the Fourteenth Amendment's birthright-citizenship clause."

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 significantly broadened who could be American and who could exercise electoral rights. The Voting Rights Act enabled thousands of African Americans to hold office in previously restrictive states. The 1965 immigration law overturned eugenicist quotas favoring white Europeans and opened pathways to citizenship. The current administration pursues demographic-focused, exclusionary measures: aggressive immigration enforcement raids, drastic refugee reductions prioritizing white Afrikaners, limits on international students, and an executive order challenging birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Read at The New Yorker