A legal-technical limit on federal power steered the Red Scare against foreigners
Evidence
The United States government possessed only one legal instrument for stamping on the propaganda activities which the postwar radicals conducted. It could deport the foreigners who supposedly were causing all the trouble; or, rather, it could deport those who had not acquired citizenship. This limitation on federal power tended to accentuate the anti-foreign emphasis in the Red Scare, for the whole weight of the distinctively national attack on radicalism fell upon the immigrants. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1361
Categorization
- QUESTION: Counterfactual: had federal sedition powers persisted, would anti-foreign nativism have peaked so high?
- XREF: connects to: Immigration restrictions climaxed a wartime cascade of anti-foreign statutes — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1806; Nativists pursued naturalization restriction chiefly to curtail foreign-born political power. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 581; A domestic terrorist attack by a citizen triggered laws targeting immigrants (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Immigration restrictions climaxed a wartime cascade of anti-foreign statutes
#expands(0.85) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1806 - A domestic terrorist attack by a citizen triggered laws targeting immigrants
#complicates(0.80) - Arab American activism drew surveillance paralleling Red Scare treatment of Jewish leftists
#expands(0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 652 - The Red Scare made Jews concrete symbols of foreign radicalism.
#exemplifies(0.78) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1688 - Nativists pursued naturalization restriction chiefly to curtail foreign-born political power.
#complicates(0.75) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 581