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I am Not a Safe Space for Xenophobia

Over the last two weeks, we've all been watching as the deluge of executive orders rain down on us and our communities. It is so clear that the goal is to confuse and exhaust us. While there is a certain element of "waiting" to see what is going to happen, what legal steps are being taken to push back, what the impact will be, there is real harm happening right now as a result of these executive orders. It is my goal to be as action oriented as possible. So let's talk about xenophobia.


First, what is it? Xenophobia is defined as the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange (Merriam-Webster). Xenophobia in the United States has been a recurring theme throughout its history, shaped by economic anxieties, racial hierarchies, and national security fears. Although the specific targets of xenophobic sentiment have shifted over time, the core narratives—framing immigrants as economic threats, cultural outsiders, or security risks—have remained remarkably consistent. The language used in spreading these narratives is often dehumanizing in nature. These narratives have fueled restrictive immigration policies, mass deportations, and violence against immigrant communities, often serving as political tools to consolidate power. Let's take a look at some of the key narratives, policies, and moments in history which have both fueled, and been fueled by, xenophobia.


19th Century: Nativism, Anti-Catholicism, and the Foundations of Exclusion

The early 19th century saw rising tensions over immigration, particularly concerning Irish and German Catholics. Protestant majorities feared that Catholic immigrants would remain loyal to the Pope rather than American democratic institutions. This anxiety led to the rise of the Know-Nothing Party (1850s), a secretive nativist political movement that sought to restrict immigration and prevent Catholics from holding office (Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1955).

While xenophobic violence was often informal—such as anti-Irish riots in cities like Philadelphia and Boston, and attacks against Chinese miners in California—government policies soon reflected these sentiments. The Page Act of 1875, for example, was one of the earliest federal immigration restrictions, targeting Chinese women under the guise of stopping "immoral" behavior, reinforcing racial and gendered stereotypes about Asian immigrants (Peffer, If They Don't Bring Their Women, 1999). Just two years after the Page Act went into effect, the San Francisco riot, a three-day riot against Chinese immigrants, took place in July 1877


Late 19th & Early 20th Century: Racialized Exclusion and Eugenics-Based Immigration Laws

The late 19th century marked the beginning of explicit racial exclusions in immigration policy, reinforcing white supremacy through law. As more non-European immigrants came to the United States, the focus began shifting from Catholics and the Irish, and instead to expanding the category of "whiteness" to secure an economic and social majority, and to exclude those who didn't fit that preferred group. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first federal law to ban immigration based on race, driven by fears that Chinese laborers were taking jobs from white workers (Gyory, Closing the Gate, 1998). Anti-Asian violence surged, with mob attacks in places like Los Angeles (1871) and Seattle (1886) forcing many Chinese and other Asian immigrants to flee. The Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907) restricted Japanese immigration, further cementing the racial hierarchy of U.S. immigration policy.


Border Sanitation and the El Paso Gasoline Baths

Mexican workers, while not explicitly barred from entry, were subjected to humiliating and dehumanizing treatment. The El Paso Gasoline Baths (1917–1950s), forced Mexican immigrants to undergo chemical "delousing" before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The chemicals used included Zyklon B, which would later be used in Nazi concentration camps (Gerber, Borderline Americans, 2011). This practice reflected fears that Mexican immigrants carried disease—an early example of using public health as a justification for xenophobia. Carmelita Torres, a 17-year-old Mexican maid working in the United States, refused the "bath". She was denied entry and began protesting being denied entry and the chemical bath. She convinced others to join her in protest. The protests known as the Bath Riots lasted from January 28 to January 30, 1917. The practice of "disinfecting" Mexican immigrants at the U.S. border continued for 40 years.


The Rise of Eugenics and Immigration Quotas

The Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) established a quota system favoring Northern and Western Europeans while severely restricting Southern and Eastern Europeans, particularly Italians, Jews, and Slavs. This law was influenced by eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief that certain races were genetically inferior (Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 2004). The Act completely banned Asian immigration, reinforcing the “Y3llow Peril” narrative that framed Asians as an existential threat to white America.


Mid-20th Century: War, Labor Exploitation, and Mass Deportations

World War II and Japanese Internment

Despite fighting for the U.S. in World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly interned under Executive Order 9066 (1942), driven by paranoia that they were enemy spies. More than 120,000 Japanese Americans—most of them U.S. citizens—were imprisoned in remote camps, despite no evidence of espionage (Daniels, Prisoners Without Trial, 1993).


The Bracero Program (1942–1964): Temporary Labor, Permanent Xenophobia

During the war, labor shortages led to the Bracero Program, which brought millions of Mexican workers to the U.S. on temporary contracts. While the program filled economic needs, braceros were routinely exploited, denied fair wages, and subjected to inhumane conditions. The program reinforced a pattern of treating Mexican labor as disposable: welcomed when needed, deported when not (Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 1995).


Operation W3tback (1954): Mass Deportations and Racial Profiling

By the 1950s, backlash against Mexican immigration escalated. Operation W3tback, authorized by President Eisenhower, resulted in the mass deportation of over 1 million Mexican immigrants, most of whom were denied due process. Some U.S. citizens of Mexican descent were deported simply for looking Mexican (García, Operation Wetback, 1980). This operation reinforced the cyclical pattern of welcoming and expelling Mexican laborers based on economic and political convenience.


Late 20th & 21st Century: Criminalization, Fear, and Political Weaponization

The 1990s: The War on Immigration

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) criminalized undocumented presence, increasing deportations and expanding immigration detention. Political rhetoric shifted, portraying undocumented immigrants—especially Latinx communities—as criminals and economic burdens.


Post-9/11: National Security and the Creation of I.C.E.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in 2003, absorbing immigration enforcement into the newly formed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). I.C.E. began targeting Latinx and Muslim communities, using militarized raids to instill fear and disrupt communities (Cainkar, Homeland Insecurity, 2009). Raids often became political tools, intensifying before elections or in retaliation against sanctuary cities.


trump Era: The Normalization of Xenophobic Policies

The 2017 Muslim Ban explicitly targeted Muslim-majority countries, reviving exclusionary policies similar to the 1924 quotas. Family separation policies at the U.S.-Mexico border, where children were placed in detention centers, further illustrated how immigration enforcement became a tool of terror rather than national security. Private companies profited off of children being detained in facilities, and the detainment was made longer due to I.C.E. being used to intimidate families and sponsors with threat of investigation. The cruelty was the point.


More than 5,000 children were separated from their families at the border under trump's "zero tolerance" policy.


I.C.E. has been weaponized since its inception, with high-profile raids often coinciding with elections or political battles over immigration policy. These militarized raids serve as a form of psychological warfare, designed to spread fear, disrupt communities, and force immigrants into the shadows. Under the first trump administration, I.C.E. intensified its use of workplace and community raids, often in retaliation against sanctuary cities or in response to state policies perceived as “soft” on immigration. By deliberately targeting locations with high immigrant populations—such as factories, schools, and homes—I.C.E. reinforces a narrative that equates undocumented immigrants, and any one who is not perceived as white, with criminality, despite the reality that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. This cycle of political scapegoating, combined with the agency’s lack of oversight, has cemented I.C.E.’s role as an enforcer of racialized immigration anxieties rather than a genuine protector of national security.


I.C.E. is nothing more than enforcement of a racist domestic terror campaign, and is part of this cycle of xenophobia that has been intentionally cultivated, and strategically tapped into as a political dog whistle that uses real people as pawns. I and so many others have been saying this for a DECADE, and many others have been saying it for even longer. So as we see executive orders and legislation like the Laken Riley Act come into effect, people are terrified, and rightfully so. Because everything trump and his cronies are saying they will do, the U.S. has already done before.

This isn't a nightmare, this is reality.


Summing Up


This is a VERY fast breakdown. There is a lot more detail, and more policy examples, but my hope is that you'll see that the development of xenophobia in the United States follows a clear pattern:

  1. Economic necessity leads to labor migration- This leads to exploitation of immigrant in harsh working conditions with unfair wages.

  2. Rising nativist fears result in restrictive laws and mass deportations- The common narrative here is "They are taking our jobs". Additionally within this theme are narratives surrounding "civilized or morally pure vs. savage or morally corrupt". The Page Act of 1875 is one example from history, and if we look at the last 10 years specifically, we see rhetoric which equates immigrants to animals or "pests". This language was also present in the 1920s at the height of the Eugenics movement, and in Nazi Germany.

  3. Immigrants are criminalized and used as political scapegoats- For this theme, we need only look at the last 10 years. How many times have we heard immigrants referred to as "invaders", "rapists"? How many times as trump and his entourage said phrases like “Migrant criminals.” “Illegal monster.” “Killers.” “Gang members.” “Poisoning our country.” “Taking your jobs.” “The largest invasion in the history of our country.”?


Despite moments of reform, xenophobia has remained deeply embedded in American policy, shifting its focus to different racial and ethnic groups over time. Whether through exclusion laws, racial quotas, internment, or mass deportations, U.S. immigration policy has historically been driven by the political utility of fear rather than genuine national security concerns.


So, what can you do?


1. Share "know your rights" information with EVERYONE you know and ask them to do the same. You can find that information here: aclu.org/know-your-rights/immigrants-rights

2. Print and share the link to print red cards from Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) . The ILRC’s Red Cards help people assert their rights and defend themselves in many situations, such as when ICE agents go to a home. You can visit this link to print and share: ilrc.org/red-cards-tarjetas-rojas


3. Learn about ICE's footprint in your community.

----Does ICE have a field office in your city or near your city?

----Does your city or county have a 287(g) agreement? These are contracts which allow local agencies to act as immigration enforcement, most typically a sheriff that runs a local jail, and gives compensation to those local agencies for enforcement.


4. Seek out local immigrant rights orgs and grassroots groups in your community and connect with them. There may be community mobilizations where you can engage in mutual aid as well as direct action to protect families.


5. Follow national immigrant rights groups like Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Immigrant Defense Project, and ACLU to stay up to date on important news and legal information. (And there are many others, just do an internet search for Immigrant rights organizations).


6. Contact your elected officials and tell them what you think! Every communication from constituents gets logged. Calling is best, or visiting them in person. Find out how to contact your elected officials here: ballotpedia.org/Who_represents_me


  1. Get engaged with the Not a Safe Space campaign. I'll be sharing more action oriented and self-care resources there soon!


We don't have to be frantic and frozen bystanders. We CAN take meaningful action.




Stay tuned for the next blog in the I Am Not a Safe Space series.



Citations

  • Higham, John. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. Rutgers University Press, 1955.

  • Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press, 2004.

  • García, Juan Ramón. Operation Wetback: The Mass Deportation of Mexican Undocumented Workers in 1954. Greenwood Press, 1980.

  • Cainkar, Louise. Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11. Russell Sage Foundation, 2009.

  • Daniels, Roger. Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II. Hill and Wang, 1993.


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