Prohibition Shows Dangers of Trump’s Immigration Rhetoric

Elizabeth Marshall for Newsweek draws an interesting parallel between Prohibition and the contemporary immigration debate:  

“In the last weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump is amping up his anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying in a recent radio interview that migrants had `bad genes’ and doubling down on his belief that undocumented immigrants are `poisoning the blood of the nation.‘ Such tropes about immigrants can incite violence and can lead to far-reaching consequences that go well beyond immigration restrictions. Nowhere is this clearer than in the history of the temperance movement whose advocacy led to Prohibition. Fears about purportedly dangerous immigrant behavior and the way that outsiders would undermine the Anglo-Saxon family drove the successful push to ban alcohol, which aimed to impose a particular Christian vision of morality and family on America.”

Jayesh Rathod has analyzed the legacy of Prohibition on immigration law.

KJ