The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

by Greg Grandin

The United States Border Patrol was officially established two years later, as part of the comprehensive 1924 Immigration Act, and immediately became arguably the most politicized branch of law enforcement, even more so than J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. The debate leading up to the passage of the act was intense; nativists warned that with its open-border policy, the country was committing “race suicide” and was in danger of “mongrelization.” Forty thousand Klansmen marched on Washington demanding entrance restrictions. The 1924 law codified into immigration policy a xenophobia that had deep roots in the nation’s history. Immigration from Asia fell to practically zero, while arrivals from central and southern Europe were sharply reduced. Most countries were now subject to a set quota system, with western European countries assigned the highest numbers.