April 2020

This interpretive essay makes the case for integrating histories of US immigration politics with imperial histories of the US in the world, specifically by foregrounding and problematizing transnational and global hierarchies and power relations, and thematizing the opening (as well as closing) of the US immigration regime as a function of geopolitical agendas. It explores and reframes the rich, growing landscape of scholarship at the intersection of US immigration and foreign relations, and discusses the instrumentalizing of US immigration policy for purposes of labor access, colonial management, diffusion, legitimation, enmity, and rescue.

This introduction to a special forum on refugees in North American history discusses variations in scholars’ approaches to refugees, with some reconstructing the historical experiences, strategies, itineraries, and perspectives of refugees, and others focusing on the political work of the category and figure of the refugee, as delineating the causes of dislocation and the extent and limits of states’ responsibilities.