U.S. Immigration Policy and White Supremacy: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis

The United States has long presented itself as a nation of immigrants, yet its immigration policies have often operated to preserve a white racial majority. This paper investigates the extent to which U.S. immigration law, historically and today, functions as a structural tool for enforcing white supremacist ideology. This paper puts forth the question of how the U.S. immigration policy historically has constructed and sustained racial hierarchy, and in what ways do contemporary laws and discourse continue to reflect these white supremacist foundations? Drawing on legal analysis, historical records, demographic data, and contemporary political rhetoric, this paper finds that from the 1790 Naturalization Act through the 1924 national origins quota system, immigration law explicitly favored white, European-origin populations. Even after the formal abolition of racial quotas in 1965, immigration enforcement disproportionately targets nonwhite immigrants, and nativist ideologies such as the Great Replacement theory have re-emerged in mainstream political discourse. This research exposes the persistence of racial bias embedded in American immigration governance. Understanding these patterns is not only essential for historical accountability, but also for informing urgent policy reform. In a world of demographic shifts and geopolitical competition, the U.S. must move beyond its racialized immigration legacy to harness immigration as both a moral imperative and strategic advantage.