Through the Back Door: Applying Theories of Legal Compliance to Illegal Immigration During the Chinese Exclusion Era

Abstract

This article applies theories of legal compliance to analyze the making of this country's first “illegal immigrants”—Chinese laborers who crossed the U.S.‐Canadian and U.S.‐Mexican borders in defiance of the Chinese exclusion laws (1882–1943). Drawing upon a variety of sources, including unpublished government records, I explore the ways in which Chinese laborers gained surreptitious entry into the United States during this period and ask, what explains their mass noncompliance? I suggest that while an instrumental perspective is useful for understanding these border crossings, it overlooks other important determinants of noncompliance: normative values and opportunity structures. Specifically, the exclusion laws were widely perceived by the Chinese as lacking social and moral legitimacy, and thus not worthy of obedience. In addition, the existence of smuggling networks and liberal immigration policies in Canada and Mexico played a critical role in facilitating noncompliance. The article concludes with a discussion about the benefits and challenges of using this theoretical framework to analyze noncompliance in immigration law.

Deciding to Cross

“…3 Based on extensive archival research, I show (Ryo 2006) that mass noncompliance with Chinese exclusion laws at the turn of the nineteenth century was partly rooted in widespread perceptions among the Chinese that the exclusion laws lacked social and moral legitimacy. Monto (1994), in his study of U.S.-Mexico labor migration, describes how circulatory migration became the right and appropriate thing to do among many young men, as this movement became a permanent, institutionalized part of the sending town's social process.…”

The Promise of a Subject-Centered Approach to Understanding Immigration Noncompliance

“…As I discussed earlier in this paper, current and prospective unauthorized immigrants do not view violations of US immigration law as immoral. On the contrary, the immigrants in my study considered such violations to be the only viable morally-permissible option given their desire to work to support their families (Ryo 2015). In light of these findings, temporary worker programs that facilitate circular migration with transparency and predictability (rather than at the whim of a given political party in power), or focused development strategies that promote job opportunities in key sending communities, may promote expectations among current and prospective immigrants that there are viable, legal avenues of fulfilling their expressed moral obligations to support their families through work.…”

“…For example, in Deciding to Cross, I collected and analyzed a large-scale survey in Mexico with individuals who were considered to be at risk of engaging in unauthorized migration into the United States (Ryo 2013). My findings showed that in addition to certain economic cost-benefit calculations, prospective immigrants' normative values, such as their moral sensibilities and their perceptions about the legitimacy of immigration laws and authorities, were significantly related to their intentions to cross the border illegally.…”

“…7 In a companion piece, Less Enforcement, More Compliance, I explored the nature of these normative values based on group interviews with immigrants at the US-Mexico border and in the interior of the United States (Ryo 2015). My analysis in Less Enforcement, More Compliance yielded several insights about the immigrants' normative values and their role in individual decisions to engage in unauthorized migration.…”

“…A growing but still a small number of studies have examined immigrants' experiences with and the impacts of immigration law from the immigrants' perspective (see, e.g., Ryo 2006;Gleeson 2010;Abrego 2011;Gonzales 2011;Menjívar and Abrego 2012;Rodríguez and Hagan 2014;Menjívar and Lakhani 2016). 6 In a related but a distinct line of inquiry, I adopted a subject-centered approach to explore immigration noncompliance among current and prospective unauthorized immigrants in the United States (Ryo 2013;Ryo 2015;Ryo 2017). Consistent with the discussion above that a subject-centered approach is not synonymous with specific research methods, I have relied on both qualitative and quantitative methods, as appropriate, to examine the perspectives, beliefs, and motivations of individuals who are subject to US immigration laws and policies.…”