After the Last Border

by Jessica Goudeau

  CHAPTER 5

  She put her hands to her ears: For the spelling of these phrases and all transliterated Arabic throughout the book, I’ve deferred to the preferences of Amena, the translator for my interviews with Hasna.

  After ten days of violent clashes: Julian Borger, “Tunisian President Vows to Punish Rioters After Worst Unrest in a Decade,” The Guardian, December 29, 2010: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/29/tunisian-president-vows-punish-rioters.

  He hired a Western PR firm: Bill Carter and Amy Chozick, “Syria’s Assad Turned to West for Glossy P.R.,” The New York Times, June 10, 2012: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/middleeast/syrian-conflict-cracks-carefully-polished-image-of-assad.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper.

  She could sense a Syria: The fascinating story of Buck’s trip to Syria to interview Asma al-Assad, the subsequent publication of the piece, unfortunately titled “Asma al-Assad: A Rose in the Desert,” in Vogue in February 2011, and Buck’s back-and-forth with the editors at Vogue is worth reading in its entirety: “Joan Juliet Buck: Mrs. Assad Duped Me,” The Daily Beast, July 30, 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20120730110710/http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/07/29/joan-juliet-buck-my-vogue-interview-with-syria-s-first-lady.html.

  Hasna’s neighbors told her: Hasna is adamant that the boys were elementary aged, but her personal account differs pretty widely from one of the more comprehensive stories about them: Mark MacKinnon, “The Graffiti Kids Who Sparked the Syrian War,” The Globe and Mail, December 2, 2016: https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-graffiti-kids-who-sparked-the-syrian-war/article33123646/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&.

  CHAPTER 6

  In zones A and B: Orapin Banjong, Andrea Menefee, Kitti Sranacharoenpong, Uraiporn Chittchang, Pasamai Eg-kantrong, Atitada Boonpraderm, and Sopa Tamachotipong, “Dietary Assessment of Refugees Living in Camps: A Case Study of Mae La Camp” (paper presentation, United Nations University Fifth International Conference on Dietary Assessment Methods, Chiang Rai, Thailand, January 26–29, 2003): http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/food/fnb24-4-3.pdf.

  CHAPTER 9

  By Hasna’s count: While I have been able to independently verify many of the details in Hasna’s narrative, including the major dates of the battles she describes, several details like this one are impossible for me to back up with outside research. The lack of a free press in Syria makes almost every source amateur; accounts of some of the smaller skirmishes or neighborhood battles depend entirely on her account or on unverifiable YouTube and Reddit videos. Since I don’t know the source of many of those videos (and because some of the ones I watched for this portion of the narrative have subsequently been deleted or changed), I will issue the caveat that these details remain unconfirmed.

  CHAPTER 10

  From the 1880s into the 1910s: For further reading about the racialized aspects of immigration policies from 1880 to 1945, see Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins, eds., The Cambridge History of Law in America, Vol. II: The Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press), particularly Chapter 6, “Citizenship and Immigration Law, 1800–1924: Resolutions of Membership and Territory,” by Kunal Parker, 168–203; Mae M. Ngai, Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014); Natalia Molina, How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014); and Desmond S. King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).

  Chinese people made up a tiny percentage: For further information about the Chinese Exclusion Act, see Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America Through Immigration Policy, 1850–1990 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Kristofer Allerfeldt, “Race and Restriction: Anti-Asian Immigration Pressures in the Pacific Northwest of America during the Progressive Era, 1885–1924,” History, 88.1 (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003), 53–73; and The Chinese Exclusion Act: A Special Presentation of American Experience, directed by Ric Burns and Li-Shun Yu, Coproduction of Steeplechase Films and the Center for Asian American Media (New York: PBS, 2018), among many other sources.

  One political cartoon from the years: “The great fear of the period That Uncle Sam might be swallowed by foreigners: The problem solved” (San Francisco: White & Bauer, between 1860 and 1869); found online at the Library of Congress website: https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3a23482/.

  This cartoon was one of dozens: The term “naturalized” formed the basis of the Naturalization Act of 1790, the first law about American citizenship, which decreed that any free white person who could prove they had resided in the United States for two years or longer was eligible to become a US citizen. “Naturalized” was therefore synonymous with “white citizen.”

  Declaring the statue the “Mother of Exiles”: Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings, edited by Gregory Eiselein (Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002), 233.

  Liberalizers had effectively blocked bills: For further reading on immigration in the Progressive Era, see Cybelle Fox, Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012); A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, edited by Christopher McKnight Nichols and Nancy C. Unger (Oxford, U.K.: Wiley Blackwell, 2017); and Steven J. Diner, A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998).

  On the list of “undesirables”: See especially James A. Tyner, Oriental Bodies: Discourse and Discipline in U.S. Immigration Policy, 1875–1942 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006); Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansionism and the Empire of Right (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995); and Mark Elwood Lincicome, Imperial Subjects as Global Citizens: Nationalism, Internationalism, and Education in Japan (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009).

  Politicians argued for: For more information on the Johnson-Reed Act and the role of eugenics at the time, read “Outstanding Features of the Immigration Act of 1924,” Columbia Law Review 25, no. 1 (1925): 90–95; David M. Reimers, “Post–World War II Immigration to the United States: America’s Latest Newcomers,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 454 (1981): 1–12; Thomas C. Leonard, “Retrospectives: Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, no. 4 (2005), 207–24; Meredith Roman, “Making Race in the Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century United States,” Journal of American Ethnic History, 35, no. 3 (2016), 99–103; among other sources.

  In an April 9, 1924, speech: Senator Ellison DuRant Smith, speaking on H.R. 7995, on April 9, 1924, 68th Cong., 1st sess. Congressional Record, 65. See also Adam Serwer, “White Nationalism’s Deep American Roots,” The Atlantic, April 2019: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/adam-serwer-madison-grant-white-nationalism/583258/.

  The act also actively barred: See Leo M. Alpert, “The Alien and the Public Charge Clauses,” Yale Law Journal, 49 (1939): 18–38.

  The racist views of the 1920s: Hitler wrote Grant in the 1920s and called The Passing of the Great Race his “bible” (Serwer, par. 6).

  The brand of “better-safe-than-sorryism”: “Better-safe-than-sorryism” is my own term for this kind of restrictionism; it came from a Facebook exchange with a friend. In a private message debating the move in Texas politics to limit Syrian refugee arrivals to the state in 2016 and 2017, this friend commented that it was better to be safe than sorry. After that conversation, I began to notice how often that phrase was the underlying warrant of so much of the anti-refugee rhetoric and policies in this decade and throughout American history.

  Better to be safe by forcibly detaining: To learn more about President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 and the Japanese internment camp program, see Richard Reeves, Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japa
nese Internment in World War II (New York: Henry Holt, 2015); Matthew M. Briones, Jim and Jap Crow: A Cultural History of 1940s Interracial America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012); and Lawson Fusao Inada, ed., Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2000).

  Their spokesman, Charles Lindbergh: Charles Lindbergh, “Who Are the War Agitators?” speech at an “America First” rally, Des Moines, Iowa, September 11, 1941. Full transcript: http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech.asp.

  The cost of “sorry” was a genocide: A Polish lawyer and linguist, Raphael Lemkin, coined the word “genocide” from geno (“race” in Greek) and cide (“killing” in Latin) to describe the slaughter enacted by the Nazis, who exterminated 49 members of his own family. See Philippe Sands, East West Street (New York: Knopf, 2017), for the fascinating and necessary story of the two men who made “crimes against humanity” and “genocide” internationally accepted legal definitions after World War II.

  CHAPTER 11

  It was ludicrous: Again, this is another detail that I cannot confirm with outside research and for which I’m relying on interviews with Hasna, Jebreel, Rana, and Laila.

  CHAPTER 13

  The government shut off: There are several videos whose origin I am unable to trace: “Syrian Army attacking Daraa on 24th April 2011,” uploaded by freeknight2011 on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIdiRpUWZ0U; “Tanks were entering Daraa early today April 24,” uploaded by Mohammad Al Abdallah on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUVdeawzkvg (the date is given in various sources ranging from April 24 to 26; Hasna is uninterested in the actual dates and remembers the story based on how it affects her family, so I’ve followed her lead in the narrative); “syria syrian government forces tanks in daraa 1,” uploaded by sssammmiiii; all accessed May 12, 2019. See also “Syria: Lift the Siege of Daraa,” the Human Rights Watch website, May 5, 2011, https://www.hrw.org/news/2011/05/05/syria-lift-siege-daraa). For more in-depth coverage of the Syrian war in 2011, see Samar Yazbik, A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution, translated from the Arabic by Max Weiss (London: Haus Pub, 2012); Nikolaos van Dam, Destroying a Nation: The Civil War in Syria (London: I. B. Tauris, 2017); Rania Abouzeid, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018); Fouad Ajami, The Syrian Rebellion (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012); Stephen Starr, Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising (London: Hurst, 2012); and Janine Di Giovanni, The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria (New York: Liveright, 2016).

  That day, many people had their phones: See “Killing of freedom protesters in Daraa on 29th April 2011,” published by freeknight2011 on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrutMwHMZPE, accessed May 12, 2019, among many other videos.

  Weeks before, seven defecting officers: See one of the original videos made by seven Syrian officers who formed the Free Syrian Army on “Syria Comment,” a website for “Syrian politics, history and religion,” authored by Joshua Landis, “Free Syrian Army Founded by Seven Officers to Fight the Syrian Army,” July 29, 2011: http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/free-syrian-army-established-to-fight-the-syrian-army/; accessed May 12, 2019.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 15

  And their part of the Jordanian border: According to Human Rights Watch, “Jordan’s border with Syria was mined prior to the current conflict within Syria, but it is not known if Syrian forces have laid new mines on its border with Jordan” (par. 17); from Hasna’s description, the border into Jordan became more difficult to traverse because of land mines, though I have been unable to independently verify that the Syrian army laid more mines than before. However, according to this article and other sources, they were laying more land mines on the borders into Turkey and Jordan, so it seems possible: “Syria: Army Planting Banned Landmines,” Human Rights Watch website, March 13, 2012, https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/03/13/syria-army-planting-banned-landmines.

  CHAPTER 16

  For the twenty years following World War II: From María Christina García, The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017): “US policymakers . . . were greatly influenced by Cold War geopolitics. Escape from a communist country was often sufficient to gain admission to the United States, and the terms ‘defector,’ ‘escapee,’ ‘refugee,’ and ‘parolee’ were used interchangeably by policymakers as well as journalists” (4).

  There were no airlifts: This figure came from the website for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees.

  There were no US-government-promoted: See John P. Burns, “Immigration from China and the Future of Hong Kong,” Asian Survey 27, no. 6 (1987): 661–82.

  There were no visas allotted: See Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, Beth Grill, and Molly Dunigan, “South Vietnam, 1960–1975: Case Outcome: COIN Loss,” in Paths to Victory: Detailed Insurgency Case Studies (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2012), 177–97, and Amelia H. Lyons, “French or Foreign? The Algerian Migrants’ Status at the End of Empire (1962–1968),” Journal of Modern European History, 12, no. 1 (2014): 126–45.

  In October 1956, student protesters: See Rupert Colville, “Fiftieth Anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising and Refugee Crisis,” UNHCR website, October 23, 2006: http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/latest/2006/10/453c7adb2/fiftieth-anniversary-hungarian-uprising-refugee-crisis.html; and Peter Pastor, “The American Reception and Settlement of Hungarian Refugees in 1956–1957,” Hungarian Cultural Studies, vol. 9 (2016), 10.5195/ahea.2016.255.

  To present it more effectively: In this overview, I’m particularly indebted to Bon Tempo’s research since I had not heard of the PR blitz before reading his book; though I’ve verified his analysis with my own primary source research, his chapter “Refugees from Hungary” (60–85) is excellent and worth reading in its entirety.

  The announcer relied on lyrical language: “The Flight from Hungary,” The News Magazine of the Screen, vol. 7, no. 5 (Warner-Pathe News, 1957): https://archive.org/details/0081NewsMagazineOfTheScreenTheVol7Issue5.

  It followed one family’s arrival: “They Pour In . . . And Family Shows Refugees Can Fit In,” Life, January 7, 1957, 20–27.

  The nationalist quota system: In 1952, Senator Patrick McCarran, a Democrat from Nevada with an impeccable restrictionist background, proposed a bill to limit admissions along the lines of the nationalist quota system. The bill adjusted the numbers in favor of Northern and Western Europeans; there were some concessions to liberalizer views, such as a few slots for Asian countries, but it was largely a restrictionist bill. Together with Representative Francis Walter, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and other advocates, McCarran successfully led the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, popularly called the McCarran-Walter Act. Truman vetoed the bill, but a congressional majority overrode his veto, and the bill stood. See E. P. Hutchison, Legislative History of American Immigration Policy, 1798–1965 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016).

  Eisenhower and other liberalizers: Refugee Relief Act of 1953, Pub.L. 83-751, 68 Stat. 1044 (1953). The act defined refugees as lacking “the essentials of life” and focused both on World War II and on Soviet victims; in addition to 45,000 people who lived in countries with communist regimes, the act opened the door to 60,000 Italians and 17,000 Greeks barred under the McCarran-Walter Act, as well as 17,000 Dutch citizens.

  During his tenure, Eisenhower “paroled”: See Bockley, “A Historical Overview of Refugee Legislation.” Bockley’s coverage of this moment in American history is especially helpful: “Despite the growing conflict over its expanding use, Congress did not challenge the executive branch’s expansive use of parole authority. Actions that had formerly been taken only after Congressional approval became a regular aspect of the Executive’s refugee policy. Because no standardized procedures were adopted to regulate it
s use, refugee admission under the parole power of the Attorney General was manipulated readily by foreign policy. Furthermore, due to the discretionary nature of parole power, it was outside of the scope of judicial review. After its discovery in 1956, parole authority became a primary means of concealing the ad hoc nature of refugee admissions” (268). The rest of the section on parole authority provides excellent insight into the debates happening in the country at the time.

  CHAPTER 17

  Seeing a man in the shadows: Bob was eventually arrested on another case by detectives in Austin and received a three-year sentence for “indecency with a child, sexual conduct,” but was later released on parole. The detective who tried to get evidence from the Burmese community told us that Bob was one of the top five most egregious pedophiles he had encountered in his many years on the force; the officers worked doggedly for weeks to convince the community to speak with them but, as far as I know, they were not successful. His eventual arrest was for sexual conduct with a child who was not a member of the refugee community. As of the writing of this book, he’s free again and living within a couple of miles of where he was; at one point he was living across the street from a middle school. As the detective informed us, “Unfortunately, there are no restrictions on [Bob] about where he can live” (email to the author, September 18, 2012). I’ve verified his arrest records on family watchdog.us; he had a previous arrest for “indecency with a child by exposure.”

  CHAPTER 19

  President Johnson signed the bill: “President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill,” Liberty Island, New York, October 3, 1965, LBJ Presidential Library website, http://www.lbjlibrary.org/lyndon-baines-johnson/timeline/lbj-on-immigration.

  Airlifts began in 1965: See “Refugee Timeline,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website: https://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/refugee-timeline.