Harsh immigration laws disproportionately lead to the targeting, jailing, and destruction of families of color. Anti-immigrant laws passed in 1996 drove mass incarceration and mass deportation of people of color. A harmful law passed by a white supremacist Senator in 1929 has also enabled significant abuses in recent years, from “assembly-line” hearings of shackled people, to the tearing of children from parents at the border.
This backgrounder explains how these laws work, the devastation they have caused, and what we can do—illustrated by stories of three people who have lived it.