“The Reunion of Families and Justice to the Alien”: The Catholic Social Critique of U.S. Immigration Law, 1924–36

After the introduction of the restrictive immigration Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924, American Catholic social reformers frequently lamented the legislation’s effects on foreign-born residents. They noted in particular that the quota system had forced many immigrant men into prolonged and indefinite separations from their wives and children in their home countries. Then as the federal government began to apply existing restriction and deportation laws more rigorously in the early years of the Great Depression, Catholic social reformers became alarmed that the climate of stringent restriction, harsh deportation, and calls for mandatory alien registration constituted an insidious threat to immigrants’ sense of inclusion in American society. Catholic social reformers warned that this spirit of suspicion might engender a sense of insecurity that could retard the assimilation of millions of immigrants and erect a barrier to their full participation in American nationhood. While highly restrictive principles dictated immigration law between 1924 and the mid-1930s, legislators took into account the negative impact of the new regime on the foreign born and attempted to adapt the laws in ways that privileged family unity and the acquisition of citizenship. The Catholic social critique of immigration law in this period reveals the ways in which immigration restriction was consistently qualified and modified, if not undermined, during the decade following the 1924 Act. This paper will argue that Catholic social reformers asserted their vision of the ideal American citizenry by participating in a lobby for legislative amendments and administrative discretion that would preserve family unity and favor those aliens who had demonstrated their desire to become American citizens. Believing that immigration law could be wielded as a tool for nation-building, Catholic social thinkers lobbied for legislation that would privilege those immigrants committed to legal naturalization, family life, and participatory citizenship.