Immigration Control as Counterinsurgency

KPFA - Against the Grain · Oct 28, 2026 · 31m

The terrorizing and mass deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration may seem an unprecedented descent into an racist order where Constitutional protections no longer apply. But, as historian Kelly Lytle Hernández argues, from early on the U.S. immigration system was exempted from the guardrails of the Constitution. She illustrates how these laws were put in place first to protect enslavers — and then elites more broadly — from the insurgent radicalism of migrants, starting with the Haitian Revolution. (Full-length interview.)

Kelly Lytle Hernández, Racist by Design: Two…