Deportation expanded from enforcing immigration rules to an ideological loyalty test

Evidence

In short, the popular concept of deportation expanded to fit the ideals of 100 per cent Americanism. … The immigration law of 1917 furnished an initial opportunity to experiment along these lines. By permitting the Department of Labor to deport aliens implicated in certain kinds of radicalism regardless of how long they had lived in the United States before the offense occurred, the statute freed the weapon of deportation from the simple and limited function of enforcing the immigration code. … In order to carry out the campaign against foreign Wobblies, therefore, the Justice and Labor Departments in 1918 asked Congress to authorize the deportation of any alien simply on grounds of belonging to an organization which advocated revolt or sabotage. Congress passed the bill in October with no opposition, and with little comprehension of the momentous step it was taking. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1316

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core question: the external-enemy category shifts from criminal/administrative target to ideological one - the manufacturing of a new enemy category as threat-hardening shifts form. — connects to: Deportation transformed from administrative tool into weapon against radicals — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 1312; National-origin immigration bars were replaced by ideological loyalty tests — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 471; Political dissidence plus Muslim identity turned a trivial immigration error into a deportation case — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 890 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: how administrative instruments quietly expand into ideological purification tools - the 1917-18 deportation laws as a case study in mission creep where institutions redefine their purpose after the original threat recedes.

Broader Connections

• Political dissidence plus Muslim identity turned a trivial immigration error into a deportation case #exemplifies (0.92) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 890
• National-origin immigration bars were replaced by ideological loyalty tests #corroborates (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 471
• Deportation emerged as a sanction for aliens who resisted wartime assimilation. #corroborates (0.80) — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1497