2003/01/01 by Mae M. Ngai · 4 citations
Social Sciences · #Race, History, and American Society
paper · doi:10.2307/3595069
openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
In January 1930 officials of the Bureau of Immigration testified about the Border Patrol before a closed session of the House Immigration Committee. Henry Hull, the commissioner general of immigration, explained that the Border Patrol did not operate “on the border line” but as far as one hundred miles “back of the line.” The Border Patrol, he said, was “a scouting organization and a pursuit organization…. [Officers] operate on roads without warrants and wherever they find an alien they stop him. If he is illegally in the country, they take him to unit headquarters.”