Verovsek, P.J. (2019) Screening migrants in the early Cold War: the geopolitics of U.S. immigration policy. Journal of Cold War Studies, 20 (4). pp. 154-179. ISSN 1520-3972
Abstract
The main elements of U.S. immigration policy date back to the early Cold War. One such element is a screening process initially designed to prevent infiltration by Communist agents posing as migrants from East-Central Europe. The development of these measures was driven by geopolitical concerns, resulting in vetting criteria that favored the admission of hardline nationalists and anti-Communists. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, the article demonstrates that geopolitics influenced immigration policy, resulting in the admission of extremist individuals. Second, it documents how geopolitical concerns and the openness of U.S. institutions provided exiles with the opportunity to mobilize politically. Although there is little evidence that the vetting system succeeded in preventing the entry of Communist subversives into the United States, it did help to create a highly mobilized anti-Communist ethnic lobby that supported extremist policies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union during the early Cold War.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Cold War Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Jan 2017 16:32 |
Last Modified: | 22 Mar 2019 16:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1162/jcws_a_00841 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:110058 |