Nativism, the concept authorities should guard native-born People from varied threats posed by immigrants, has a long history in the United States.
Right now, the Trump administration is citing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a restrictive measure written by nativist members of Congress many years in the past when fears of communism were rampant, to sharply limit the rights of noncitizens.
Below this regulation, often known as the McCarran-Walter Act, federal companies have arrested and detained noncitizens associated with pro-Palestinian protests, reintroduced immigrant registration requirements, and imposed a new travel ban that impacts 19 nations.
For the reason that Nineteen Fifties, Congress has eliminated a few of this sprawling federal regulation’s most discriminatory features, corresponding to racist nationwide origins quotas. However different key provisions stay on the books. Now they’re the first authorized foundation for a few of President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration crackdowns.
Overseas coverage trumps free speech
In March 2025, the White Home invoked the McCarran-Walter Act to justify arresting and deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a authorized everlasting resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia College. Officers pointed to Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the regulation, which states that any “alien whose presence or actions in america the Secretary of State has cheap floor to imagine would have doubtlessly critical adversarial international coverage penalties for america is deportable.”
This has been tried solely as soon as earlier than. In 1995, the Clinton administration unsuccessfully sought to make use of the availability to deport a former Mexican official, Mario Ruiz Massieu, to face expenses in his homeland for extortion and obstructing a homicide investigation. Ruiz Massieu was later indicted within the U.S. on cash laundering expenses and died by suicide shortly before his arraignment.
The Trump administration cited the identical provision to justify detaining Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk got here beneath authorities scrutiny as a result of she co-authored an op-ed within the Tufts pupil newspaper criticizing the college’s place on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Surveillance footage of a terrified Ozturk being arrested by masked Immigration Customs and Enforcement brokers on a avenue in Somerville, Massachusetts, drew criticism from government officials and civil liberties advocates. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that Ozturk had harmed U.S. interests by supporting “actions which are concerned in doing issues like vandalizing universities, harassing college students, taking up buildings, making a ruckus.”
Khalil and Ozturk each had been launched after weeks in detention, pending closing decision of their circumstances. Their attorneys argue that their purchasers’ therapy violates free speech protections and that the defendants had been punished for expressing their political views.
Monitoring noncitizens
The McCarran-Walter Act additionally authorizes intrusive registration and tracking requirements for noncitizens who stay within the U.S. for 30 days or longer.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Division of Homeland Safety to implement an “alien registration requirement.” The company issued a final rule in April requiring all noncitizens over the age of 14 to register and be fingerprinted. Mother and father or guardians should register noncitizen youngsters beneath age 14. The rule additionally requires grownup noncitizens to hold “proof of registration” always.
Such insurance policies aren’t new. Noncitizen registration was codified within the Alien Registration Act of 1940, on the eve of U.S. entry into World Warfare II. The regulation was designed to manage the foreign-born inhabitants and encourage eligible noncitizens to hitch the U.S. armed forces. Its necessities had been written into the McCarran-Walter Act.
After the 9/11 terrorist assaults, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which focused noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 Muslim-majority nations. It required registrants to submit biometric data, verify in repeatedly with immigration authorities and use particular ports of entry for journey.
The Obama administration suspended this method in 2011 and permanently dismantled it in 2016.
Right now, Trump administration officers say they’re simply enforcing long-standing legal authority. A federal choose agreed, ruling on April 10 that the Homeland Safety Division may require noncitizens to register and carry documentation.
Journey bans redux
On June 2, Trump announced a new travel ban on international nationals from 12 nations, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. The ban attracts its authority from the McCarran-Walter Act. Two days later, Trump claimed the identical authorized discretion to exclude Harvard University’s international students from the U.S.
Throughout his first time period, Trump invoked these sections of the regulation to justify a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Courtroom finally upheld this motion in 2018 by a 5-4 vote in Trump v. Hawaii. Writing for almost all, Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that the journey ban was nicely inside broad powers over immigration granted to the president beneath the McCarran-Walter Act. He added that the courtroom had “no view on the soundness of the coverage.”
Trump’s new ban is extra rigorously crafted than earlier variations and extra prone to face up to authorized challenges. However his efforts to make use of the McCarren-Walter Act to ban worldwide college students from attending Harvard College face stiff authorized headwinds.
On Could 22, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard officers that the company was revoking the school’s certification to take part within the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which grants visas to worldwide college students to come back to the U.S. In a June 4 proclamation, the White Home claimed that international college students at Harvard had behaved in ways in which threatened U.S. nationwide safety.
A federal choose in Boston quickly blocked the revocation, holding that it violated core constitutional free speech rights. “The federal government’s misplaced efforts to manage a good tutorial establishment and squelch numerous viewpoints seemingly as a result of they’re, in some cases, against this administration’s personal views, threaten these rights,” wrote Decide Allison D. Burroughs.
The newest step got here on July 9, when the Trump administration subpoenaed Harvard for data on its international college students, together with their disciplinary data and involvement in campus protests.
Broad energy over noncitizens
Mockingly, congressional sponsors of the McCarran-Walter Act had been at odds with the White Home when the regulation was enacted in 1952. They overrode a veto by President Harry S. Truman, who thought the regulation’s nativist concepts had been unfitting for a nation of immigrants and international defender of democracy.
Nonetheless, the expansive government powers created by this regulation have endured largely unaltered over time, by way of waves of immigration reform.
Now they’re a boon to the Trump administration’s formidable immigration crackdown. It’s a telling reminder that repressive previous legal guidelines can come again to life – even once they don’t reflect the current views of many People.
