LOS ANGELES, CA – The Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law, in partnership with the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, with research support by students at the UCLA School of Law, and with state funding provided at the behest of the California Asian American and Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, published a groundbreaking new report that details the history of anti-AAPI racism in U.S. immigration policy and the devastating and pervasive impact these laws continue to have on AAPI communities to this day.  

The history and data outlined in this report provides crucial context to many of the issues that elected leaders and advocates are discussing in communities across California today. In fact, CILP used this research last year to urge California Senators to pass the VISION Act and end state and local transfers to ICE, which ultimately failed to pass. This year, the state legislature has another opportunity in the REP 4 All Immigrants Act (AB 617) to confront the racist origins and impacts of these laws by removing criminal exclusions which block access to critical immigration legal services for Californians facing removal.

“This is a crucial time for us in California to be having this conversation about how the anti-AAPI racism behind the U.S.’s immigration laws continues to harm Californians and their families to this day. Ignoring these historical insights only perpetuates that harm,” said Astghik Hairapetian, CILP legal fellow and principal author of the report. “We urge California lawmakers to take a close look at our research as essential context for many of the bills on their desks this legislative session, including Assembly Bill 617, which would ensure access to legal representation for Californians facing removal.”

The report discusses the explicitly racist statements made by lawmakers in support of early versions of today’s laws attaching immigration consequences to certain crimes. For example, in 1915 a U.S. Congressman from California supported an early law making people deportable for so-called “crimes involving moral turpitude,” stating: “California being on the shores of the Pacific seems to be a dumping ground for the undesirable from Asia… the standard of living and the standard of morality of our people are lowered by the arrival of this ignorant and immoral horde from across the sea.” Another U.S. Congressman from California supported one of the country’s first laws making individuals deportable for crimes related to controlled substances, stating in 1922 that California’s drug situation was worse than the rest of the country because “because we have more orientals there, and orientals are great at this drug game.” 

“Throughout our country’s history, immigration laws—in statutes, regulations, and executive branch orders—have discriminated against and excluded people on the basis of race, nationality, religion, and ethnicity. The origins of these laws must be examined and confronted so they do not continue to harm communities in California and throughout the country,” said Hiroshi Motomura, CILP faculty co-director and co-author of the report. “California’s leaders must take a stand against the ways that our state policies perpetuate racism in our immigration system, or they are complicit in extending this shameful legacy.”

Read the full report here: https://bit.ly/3YutNTE 

Read the report brief here: https://bit.ly/3Ip65m4 

Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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